Box Score Towson, MD – Freshmen
Darian Anderson (Washington, D.C./St. John's College ) and
Marques Townes (Edison, N.J./St. Joseph (Metuchen)) netted career-highs of 23 and 18 points, respectively, to lead the FDU men's basketball to an 85-84 come-from-behind overtime victory over the Tigers tonight in the SECU Arena on the Towson University campus. The victory pushes the Knights record to 5-6 overall as they close out the non-conference portion of their schedule.
"I am so proud of our guys tonight," said FDU head coach
Greg Herenda. "We started our non-conference schedule with a huge win at St. Joe's and to end it with a CAA road win says a ton about where our program is heading."
Down 84-83 with 32 second to play in the extra session,
Matt MacDonald (Buffalo, N.Y./Canisius) drove the baseline and found a wide open Townes for a lay-up which proved to be the game winner when Towson's Four McGlynn's half-court try at the buzzer rattled halfway down and out. Townes, who also had a game and career-high 5 steals, scored 16 of his points in the second half and overtime as the Knights committed just three turnovers in the game while forcing Towson, which falls to 7-6 on the year, to 25 turnovers, the most by an FDU opponent all season.
Trailing by as much as 16 points early in the second half and down 14 points (62-48) with 10 minutes to play in regulation, the Knights used a 25-11 run over a 7:30 stretch to deadlock the score 73-73 before the two teams finished regulation tied at 77. Anderson, who hit a critical 3-pointer in the overtime, scored 15 of his career-high 23 points in the second half. Anderson and Townes along with graduate student
Darius Stokes (Marion, Iowa/Linn-Mar) led the team with 5 rebounds each.
In the first stanza, FDU opened the scoring (2-0) at the 18:16 mark on a basket by
Darius Stokes (Marion, Iowa/Linn-Mar), but the Tigers responded with a 9-0 run taking a 9-2 lead into the first media timeout of the first half. Despite losing the first-half battle on the boards, FDU cut the Towson lead which had grown to as much as 9 (16-7 13:07) to as little as 4 points (28-24) with 7:13 to play in the first half. Towson closed the first half out on an 8-0 run over the final 4:00 minutes of the half to take a 46-32 lead into the intermission.
FDU will return to action on January 3, 2015 as the Knights head to New Britian, CT to take on Central Connecticut State in the Northeast Conference opener for both team.
