Visiting Mount St. Mary's broke the Fairleigh Dickinson University men's basketball team's three-game conference win streak on Saturday night as the Mountaineers won, 77-67, in Stratis Arena.
Mike Scott (Philadelphia, PA/Texas Christian) led four Knights (9-18, 8-6 Northeast Conference) in double-digits with 14 points, dishing out nine assists, while Sean Baptiste (North Brunswick, NJ/St. Josephs of Metuchen) added 11 points and Alvin Mofunanya (Englewood, NJ/Dwight Morrow) had his third-straight double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds. John Galvin (Weston, CT/Weston) had 10 points, all of which came in the first half.
The Knights took an 18-9 lead to open the game, with eight points coming from Galvin over the first nine minutes. In those nine minutes, the Knights shot 7-for-14 from the floor.
After the Mount (11-14, 8-6 NEC) was able to cut it to a five-point game (18-13), Terence Grier (Cranford, NJ/St. Thomas More Prep), who finished with nine points, a steal, four assists and only one turnover, and Galvin had back-to- back lay-ups for a 22-13 edge with nine minutes remaining in the first half.
Raven Barber converted a three-point play to cut the Knights' advantage to 22-16, but Scott's fast break lay-up off a defensive rebound from Baptiste put FDU's lead back up to eight.
DeShawn Dockery (Chicago, IL/Worcester Academy), who had six points and two steals on the night, netted a fast break lay-up off Mofunanya's rebound and assist to give FDU the 28-21 lead with four minutes left to play in the first frame.
Kelly Beidler and Raven had back-to-back buckets for the Mount, trimming the Knights' lead to three with 2:50 on the clock and a lay-in from Jeremy Goode made it a one-point game, 30-29, capping a 16-8 run over seven and a half minutes. Barber had six points during the run, while Goode and Beidler each had four.
Kamil Svrdlik (Prerov, Czech Republic/Gymnazium Zlin)'s put-back gave the Knights a 32-29 edge heading into the locker room. Galvin had 10 points on 5-for-7 shooting to lead FDU in the first half, while Mofunanya pulled down 10 rebounds. FDU finished the first half shooting 39.4 percent and going a perfect 4-for-4 from the line, while Mount St. Mary's shot 39.3 percent and connected on 7-of-12 attempts from the free throw line. The Knights held the Mount without a three-point field goal (0-7) in the first 20 minutes.
The Mountaineers were hot out of the break, taking a 38-33 edge, their first lead since 19:28 of the first half, but Scott sank a three to make it a two-point game. The Mountaineers scored five-straight to take a seven-point lead four minutes into the second period.
After Shawn Atupem put in a jumper to give the Mount the 45-37 edge, Scott netted a jumper then fed Baptiste, who drained a three. But the Mount responded with an 11-2 run to take a commanding 56-44 lead. Holland sank a trio of three-pointers in a two-minute span for a 56-44 Mountaineer lead.
The Knights went for a four and a half-minute draught without scoring as the Mount took a 59-46 lead, but Grier and Scott had back-to-back baskets to cut the Mountaineer's edge back to single-digits, 59-50, with less than eight minutes remaining in the game. After a free throw from Beidler gave the Mount a 65-50 lead, FDU staged a 7-0 scoring spurt to cut the Mount's edge to only seven with 3:25 on the clock, but that was as close as the Knights would get as Mount St. Mary's took the 77-67 win.
"They are a good team and playing very well," said Head Coach Greg Vetrone. "I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't lose a game for the rest of the year. The posed a lot of problems for us; there wasn't one position where we had an advantage."
"We missed a lot of lay-ups and it just wasn't our night. In the first half, we got out in transition, but in the second half we weren't able to get any stops," said Vetrone.
"We still have a chance to control our own destiny for the postseason. We have up a game at home and now we have to go and get one on the road."
Fairleigh Dickinson finished the game shooting 41 percent, while the Mount shot 51 percent overall, and 70 percent from three-point range in the second half (7-10). The Knights held the edge on the boards, 37-32, and from the free throw line (75 percent-54.5 percent).
Beidler led all scorers with 22 points, while Holland had 14, Barber had 13, Atupem had 12 and Jeremy Goode added 10.
The Knights are back in action at Long Island on Thursday, February 18, in a game at 7:30 p.m. that can be listened to on www.fduknights.com.
