The Fairleigh Dickinson University men's basketball team ended the season with a 78-59 loss at Saint Francis PA on Saturday evening. The Knights close out the year 7-23 overall, with a 6-12 mark in Northeast Conference play, while the Red Flash finish the season 6-24, with a 3-15 record in league action.
Kamil Svrdlik (Prerov, Czech Republic/Gymnazium Zlin) matched his career-high against the Red Flash with 16 points, while Terence Grier (Cranford, NJ/St. Thomas More Prep) and John Galvin (Weston, CT/Weston) both finished with 11 and Alvin Mofunanya (Englewood, NJ/Dwight Morrow) added 10 points. Svrdlik led the team on the boards with six rebounds.
Mofunanya's shot just inside the arc gave the Knights an 8-4 lead three and half minutes into the game. Mofunanya scored six of the Knights' first eight points. But, after three ties, Saint Francis staged a 12-0 run, with seven points coming from Marquis Ford, to take an 18-10 lead.
Mofunanya sank two from the charity stripe to cut the Red Flash lead to four, 20-16, with 8:17 on the clock. Galvin converted an old-fashioned three-point play to make it 26-21, but Saint Francis scored five unanswered points to extend the gap to double-digits. Grier answered with a bucket and the point after with just under five minutes remaining in the first half.
Galvin sank a jumper with 2:43 left to play in the first period for a seven-point game, 35-28, but the Red Flash's quick 8-0 run, on the strength of a pair of three-pointers from Cale Nelson, and Saint Francis went into the half with a 43-30 lead.
Galvin led the Knights at half time with nine points, while Svrdlik and Mofunanya each had eight points. Nelson led all scorers with 11 points, scoring three treys in the first 20 minutes. The Red Flash shot 62 percent while holding the Knights to 46 percent from the floor. FDU held a slight edge on the boards, 14-13.
Steve Profeta scored the first seven points of the second half for the Red Flash, starting the second frame with two from three-point range. But the Knights' defense responded, holding SFU without a field goal for over six minutes.
A lay-in from Galvin with 13 minutes remaining made it a 51-40 game. But the Red Flash went on an 11-2 run to make it 62-42 with seven and a half minutes left to play. After sinking a three-pointer, Cameron Tyler (Jamaica, NY/Notre Dame Prep (MA)) stole the ball and took it to the other end, 65-47, with six and a half minutes left in the game.
The Knights staged a 7-0 run, started by a trey in the corner from Sam Fernley (Sheffield, England/Silverdale) before Grier sank back-to-back baskets, making it 74-59.
But Devin Sweetney put in two free throws with a minute left to play to make the final 78-59.
Fairleigh Dickinson out-scored the Red Flash in the paint, 20-8, in the second half, but the Red Flash held a 10-2 edge in points off of turnovers.
Cale led Saint Francis with 17 points, connecting on 5-of-6 from behind the arc. SFU finished the game shooting 53 percent from the floor.
“We gave way too many open looks to Saint Francis tonight,” said Head Coach Tom Green. “Our defense hasn't been efficient the last four of five games and it showed tonight. If you give a team that is shooting well 25 open looks and they make 12, it's going to be a long night. We were trying to fight back from 13 down at halftime, and we could never really get anything going.”
