Franklin Pierce’s Hot Shooting Dooms the Setters
When last Wednesday night’s Northeast-10 Conference game got underway at the Goldstein Fitness Center, visiting Franklin Pierce spent the opening 90 seconds missing its first five shots from the field.
Too bad for the Pace University men’s basketball team it wasn’t a hint of things to come.
The Ravens wound up making nearly two-thirds of their shots in the second half to gain control of a contest that was tied eight times before intermission. With senior forward Asante Sandiford erupting for 17 of his game-high 20 points after halftime, Franklin Pierce earned an 86-79 victory and sent the Setters to their third straight defeat.
“We knew it would be a tough one for sure, and it certainly was,” said Setters head coach Matt Healing afterwards. “They’ve got three seniors along the front line that are all pretty good. I thought that we played really hard. Just didn’t execute on defense.”
Sandiford, scoreless until the game was nearly 12 and a half minutes old, made all four of his 3-point shots in the second half when the Ravens were putting on a shooting clinic, hitting 65.5 percent of their attempts from the floor. The first of those treys by Sandiford came in the midst of a 13-2 Raven run and gave Franklin Pierce the lead for good with 12:57 left in the game.
“He’s a really good player,” said Healing about Sandiford, who also added a game-high 10 rebounds. “Inside-outside forward, strong, he’s tough. We knew he could make shots and he certainly hurt us on the perimeter today and on the glass.”
The second-half exploits from Sandiford helped spoil a productive evening for a quartet of Setters — Austin Gilbertson, Greg Poleon, Peyton Wejnert and Brandon Jacobs — who combined to score all but 10 of Pace’s 79 points. Gilbertson, a freshman guard, led the way with 19 points, while Wejnert, off the bench, and Poleon had 17 apiece. Jacobs added 16, but was just 5-for-16 from the field, though he made a team-best three 3-pointers.
“For me, it was about getting stops,” said Healing. “Man, zone, press, no press, really it just comes down to digging in together as a group defensively and getting stops, and we weren’t really able to do that in the second half, especially.”
The Setters, trailing 14-8 after an 8-0 Raven run, went on a 13-3 spurt that started with a Jacobs 3-pointer and ended with a 17-foot pullup jumper by Ray Montilus. Later in the half, they retained the four-point lead following baskets by Poleon and Wejnert. But a 3-pointer by David Bradbury sliced the Franklin Pierce deficit to 37-36 at halftime.
In the second half, the lead changed hands four times over the first six minutes before Sandiford’s 3-point shot from the left corner gave the Ravens the upper hand for the remainder of the night. A pair of free throws by Dana Raysor had given Pace a 50-47 edge with 14:07 to go, but by the time Sandiford connected on another trey, this time from the top of the key, to cap the momentum-changing 13-2 Franklin Pierce spurt the Setters suddenly found themselves trailing by eight points.
Two free throws by Gilbertson moved Pace to within 64-63 with 8:39 left on the clock, but moments later Sandiford answered with another 3-pointer. After a Jacobs 3-point shot cut the Ravens’ lead to 74-71 with 4:50 remaining, Mike McDevitt scored for Franklin Pierce on a short turnaround jumper along the left baseline. But the Setters battled back again, closing to 81-77 with 90 seconds to go after Gilbertson nailed a three from beyond the top of the key.
But with 1:14 remaining, Wejnert was whistled for an offensive foul on a drive through the lane. The Ravens proceeded to score five straight points, four of them from Amanie Craddock, to seal their fifth win in the last six games.
“We could’ve won with a good defensive effort, but that wasn’t there,” said Healing. “It seemed like every time we got within one possession down the stretch, they made a play. We couldn’t get a stop. It’s unfortunate, but, like I said, they’re a good team. They’re better than their record indicates (just 2-6 in the NE-10 coming in), and they’ve got three senior forwards that are all pretty good, that all played really well today. So just got to move on to the next one.”
The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the Setters, now 5-13 overall and 1-9 in the NE-10 this season after closing their week with a loss at Assumption on Saturday. They host a Saint Anselm team on Wednesday night that’s currently at the top of the NE-10’s Northeast Division standings.
“What we hang our hat on is not quitting, not giving up,” said Healing. “It’s a tough group, it’s a scrappy group, and I feel like in almost every game we’ve played we’ve battled back and clawed back. I think they all see the record, but at the same time they know all we can do is just keep working together.”
Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.
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