MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Saint Anselm College men's basketball team is moving on to the Northeast-10 Conference championship game on Saturday after defeating Franklin Pierce University on Wednesday in the NE10 Semifinals.
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Saint Anselm, who won by a score of 80-66, improves to 20-8 on the season. The Hawks, winners of 10 games in a row, will entertain the Chargers from the University of New Haven on Saturday at 1 p.m. in Stoutenburgh Gymnasium. Saint Anselm has now defeated Franklin Pierce three times this season.
The Hawks will play for its ninth NE10 postseason title – no other NE10 program has more than four league championships to its credit. Saint Anselm, owners of a 53-30 record in NE10 postseason play, will also make its league-leading 14th appearance in the conference championship game.
More information about the NE10 Championship, including a comprehensive game preview, will be released in the coming days.
Recording the team's sixth 20-win season in the last seven years, the Hawks were led by a 28-point performance by junior Chris Paul (Highland Mills, N.Y.), who earlier this week was selected as a First Team All-Conference honoree. Classmate Gustav Suhr-Jessen (Virum, Denmark) had 15 points and 13 rebounds with senior Danny Evans (Leeds, United Kingdom) producing 12 points with 10 boards.
Freshman Tyler Arbuckle (Bristol, Conn.) logged 13 points and four caroms with sophomore Miles Tention (Palo Alto, Calif.) cashing in with eight points, eight assists and five rebounds. Freshman Matt Relihan (Lynnfield, Mass.) was responsible for a career-best seven rebounds and two points off the bench for the Hawks.
Saint Anselm responded to a game-opening basket by Franklin Pierce (16-12) with a 15-4 scoring run, never looking back en route to the victory. The Ravens battled back to cut the score to six, 17-11, but the Hawks pulled away before halftime despite shooting just 34.2% in the opening 20 minutes.
Franklin Pierce trimmed the Hawks lead to just seven points before halftime, but Saint Anselm forged ahead with the first seven points of the second half to create a 16-point bulge with 18:37 left in regulation time. Saint Anselm led by as many as 22 points in the second stanza and kept Franklin Pierce at arm's length, never seeing the point deficit fall below 14 points.
Isaiah Moore, one of the league's leaders in field goal percentage, did not disappoint, posting 23 points on 10-of-16 shooting with a team-leading eight rebounds. Falu Seck posted 12 points for the Ravens, who connected on just five of its 31 attempts from beyond the arc. Franklin Pierce also lost the board battle, seeing the Hawks match a season-high mark with 53 of the game's 87 rebounds.
