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Wagner-St. Francis Brooklyn Highlights
One-On-One: Wagner Play-by-Play Announcer Joey Wahler speaks with Head Coach Bashir Mason
On The Court: Joey Wahler Interviews Mike Aaman Following Today's Win
Staten Island, NY – With just seven seconds to go in regulation, junior guard
Corey Henson (Upper Marlboro, MD/DeMatha Catholic) found space and hit a driving layup, which proved to be the game-winner, as the Wagner men's basketball team defeated cross-borough Northeast Conference (NEC) rival, St. Francis Brooklyn, 66-64, on Saturday afternoon. With the win, the Seahawks improve to 9-11 on the season and even their conference record at 5-5 while the Terriers fall to 4-19 on the year and 2-8 in league play. Additionally, today's victory marked the 80th career win for fifth-year head coach
Bashir Mason, who also earned his 50th NEC victory.
Redshirt senior forward
Mike Aaman (Hazlet, NJ/ Raritan/Rhode Island) tossed in a game-high 19 points on just 4-of-9 shooting while converting on 11-of-13 from the free-throw line. Aaman also grabbed nine rebounds and swatted away two shots in his 31 minutes of action. Senior guard
Michael Carey (Nassau, Bahamas/Lamar Consolidated [San Jacinto College]) produced his 22nd career double-double, finishing the ballgame with 15 points and a game-best 11 caroms en route to posting his seventh of the season.
With the game-winner under his belt, Henson finished with nine points while grabbing five rebounds and rejecting two shots. Henson is now up to 986 career points, just 14 away from becoming the 43rd Seahawk in the 1,000-point club. Sophomore guard
Devin Liggeons (Philadelphia, PA/Imhotep Charter) chipped in eight points and four rebounds in 22 minutes of action.
Three Terriers finished in double-figures, led by a Yunus Hopkinson's team-high 16 points on 5-of-10 shooting while converting 4-of-6 from beyond-the-arc. Rasheem Dunn added 11 points and a team-high eight rebounds and five assists. Jagos Lasic had a career afternoon, scoring ten points and dishing out three assists in 24 minutes of play.
St. Francis Brooklyn jumped out to a 5-2 lead after baskets from Hopkinson and John Nurse. Wagner responded with an 11-5 spurt over a near six-minute stretch that saw the Green & White take a 13-10 advantage. The visiting Terriers seized control over the next 6:40, thanks to a 19-7 run, that gave SFBK a 29-20 advantage with just 4:17 left in the first half. St. Francis Brooklyn converted on 60.0% percent from the field over this run while holding Wagner to just 3-of-8 and forcing three turnovers.
Wagner clawed their way back into the contest, primarily from the free-throw line, as the trimmed the lead to just 32-31 at the break, thanks to Liggeons' buzzer-beating jumper from 17 feet out. The Green & White opened the second half of play on fire, converting on 4-of-6 from the field in building an 11-2 run that brought the lead to eight, 42-34 after Carey converted the traditional three-point play from the line.
The Terriers had an answer, however, outscoring Wagner 19-to-11 over the next 10:05 in tying the contest at 53. Both teams struggled from the field but capitalized from the line, hitting a combined 12-of-20 during this run. Junior guard
JoJo Cooper (Wilmington, DE/Concord), who finished with three points and six rebounds, made three-of-four freebies in helping the Seahawks use a 9-3 run to take a 62-56 lead with 3:32 remaining in regulation. The scrappy St. Francis Brooklyn Terriers responded with an 8-2 run over the next 2:39. Staten Island native Glenn Sanabria hit a big three-pointer and was matched by Hopkinson, as SFBK tied the game at 62 with 1:43 showing on the clock.
On the ensuing Seahawk possession, Carey was able to drive the lane and place a high-arcing floater that found the bottom of the net, giving Wagner a 64-62 lead. A foul charged to Aaman with fifty-three seconds, SFBK's Gianni Ford calmly hit two from the line as the Seahawk faithful crowd was boisterous during his attempts. Wagner head coach
Bashir Mason elected to use a timeout to draw a play. After getting the pass from Aaman at the top-of-the-key, Cooper drove the lane but was swarmed by two Terriers with the foul being charged to Robert Montgomery, who picked up his fifth in the process. Cooper missed both attempts, but was fortunate that Aaman was defended by a Terriers guard in the paint, as the burly 6-8 forward was able to corral the loose ball and have the Seahawks call their final timeout in setting up a play that proved to be the difference. The Seahawks held a 44-35 edge on the boards while scoring 32 of its 66 points in the paint and shooting 43.8 percent from the field.
Wagner now hits the road for four straight games, the first of which will be on Thursday, February 2 when the Seahawks travel to New Britain, CT for a 7:00 p.m. tip vs. the Central Connecticut State University Blue Devils.
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