Senaldi, Johnson lead hot-shooting
Ravens to second-straight home win
RINDGE, N.H. (January 20,
2005) -Franklin Pierce shot nearly 60-percent from the
field in posting an 82-65 upset of Pace University in Northeast-10
Conference men's basketball action at the Franklin Pierce
Fieldhouse tonight.
Sophomore Nazim Senaldi
(Istanbul, Turkey) helped lead a balanced scoring
attack for the Ravens with a career-high matching 15 points (13
first-half) as he hit five-of-seven from the field, including 3-5
from three-point range. He also added four assists and three
rebounds in the contest.
Freshman Mitchell
Johnson (Nassau, Bahamas/Cushing Academy) also netted
15 points to go with a game-high six assists and six rebounds.
Junior Justin Powell (Brookline,
Mass./Brookline) added 14 points and four rebounds,
while sophomore Darryl Minnifield (Boston,
Mass./Brookline) finished with 11 points, a game-high
nine rebounds, four assists and three steals. Junior
Pierre Sully (Jamaica Plain, Mass./North Cambridge
Catholic) chipped in 11 points, seven boards, four
assists and three steals.
Freshman Ryan Williams
(Centerville, Va./Paul VI) led Pace with a game-best
17 points and added three steals. Classmates Maurice
Douglas (Waldorf, Md./So. Maryland Christian) and
Gibraltar White (Gautier, Miss./Gautier)
came off the bench to score 12 and 11 points, respectively, while
junior Chaka Lightburn (Belize City, Belize/St. John's
College HS) grabbed a team-best five rebounds.
Franklin Pierce shot exactly
57.7-percent (15-26) in each half, but it was its lights out
shooting plus a 24.2-percent (8-33) shooting effort by Pace in the
first half that enabled the Ravens to take a 17-point (40-23) lead
at the break.
Pace led by three (17-14) after
Lightburn converted a conventional three-point play with 7:51 left
in the opening half. Franklin Pierce then held the Setters to just
one field goal with two-seconds remaining in the stanza during a
26-6 run to close out the half. The Ravens canned five
three-pointers, three from Senaldi, during that stretch.
Pace scored the first eight points
of the second half and cut its deficit to nine points just 1:19 in.
Williams drained a three-pointer to pull the Setters within
three-points (49-46) with 12:49 to play.
The Ravens regrouped and used a
14-4 run to regain a 13-point edge (65-52) with 7:29 left in
regulation. Johnson sparked the burst with a pair of
three-pointers. Pace would not get within 11 points the rest of the
way and Franklin Pierce took a 20-point lead with just under a
minute to play after a Sully lay-up.
Franklin Pierce (5-11, 3-8 NE-10)
returns to action on Saturday, when it visits Le Moyne College for
a key Conference clash at 3 p.m. Pace (10-7, 7-5 NE-10) returns
home on Saturday to host Assumption College at 3:30 p.m.
BOX
SCORE
