Cooper leads Ravens with nine points

BOXSCORE

WALTHAM, Mass. (December 4, 2010) -- The Franklin Pierce University men's basketball team couldn't contain a hot shooting Bentley team on Saturday afternoon as the Ravens fell to the Falcons, 65-46, at the Dana Center in Waltham, Mass. The Ravens fell to 3-5 overall and 1-4 in the Northeast-10, while Bentley improved to 6-2 and 5-0 in league play.

Freshman forward Ellis Cooper (Northampton, Mass.) led all Franklin Pierce scorers with nine points, while freshman forward Matt Barboza (East Providence, R.I.) and sophomore guard Eric Jean-Guillaume (Stamford, Conn.) followed with six points apiece.

Brian Tracey led Bentley with 17 points, while Jasper Grassa followed with 14 points.

Jean-Guillaume knocked down back-to-back triples early in the game to stake the Ravens to a 6-3 lead. Franklin Pierce was up 9-8 moments later, but Bentley out-scored the Ravens, 34-9 the rest of half to take a 42-18 lead into the locker room at halftime.

Tracey had 11 points for the Falcons in the opening 20 minutes, while Grassa added nine. Cooper led all Franklin Pierce scorers with seven points. Bentley shot 57 percent (17-of-30) from the floor in the half, while limiting Franklin Pierce to just 27 percent shooting (7-of-26). Bentley assisted on 14 of its 17 shots made in the half, while also owning a 22-10 advantage on the boards.

That late first-half run by the Falcons proved to be the turning point in the game as they never let their lead slip below double-digits the entire second half.

Franklin Pierce returns to action Tuesday when the Ravens play host to UMass-Lowell at 7:30 p.m. in The Fieldhouse in Rindge.

For more information on Franklin Pierce men's basketball, please visit the team's page at athletics.franklinpierce.edu(.) To follow the program even further, please visit Franklin Pierce Athletics on YouTube (www.youtube.com/FranklinPierceSports), Twitter (www.twitter.com/FPUathletics) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/FranklinPierceAthletics).