Jan. 17, 2008

Final Stats

FAIRFIELD, CT - Junior Ryon Howard (Bronx, NY) scored a career-high 20 points, while senior Drew Shubik (Stoystown, PA) added 18 to lead the Sacred Heart University men's basketball team to an 87-82 win over visiting Fairleigh Dickinson University in a Northeast Conference game Thursday night.

The get the win, the Pioneers had to overcome the one-two punch of FDU's Sean Baptiste and Manny Ubilla who combined to pour in 61 of the Knight's 82 points. Baptiste, a sophomore, had a career-high 33, while Ubilla finished with 28.

Sacred Heart, 8-10 overall and 5-2 in the conference, took an early 10-8 lead on a Howard dunk but FDU used a 12-4 run to take a 20-14 lead with 11:42 left in the first half. Eric Hazard finished off the run with a three-pointer that gave the Knights the biggest lead it would have in the game.

The Pioneers then used three straight treys by Shubik and two from sophomore Corey Hassan (Merrimack, NH) to retake the lead at 23-20 with 9:54 to go in the half. SHU would never trail again. Another Shubik three gave the Pioneers their biggest lead of the half, 35-27, with 7:05 to and they would parlay that into a 47-39 lead at the intermission.

Shubik gave SHU its first double-digit lead at 53-43 with a layup two minutes into the second half. In fact, it looked like the Knights were about to get blown out of the building when they trailed after a Hassan bucket, 72-55, with 10:32 to play.

FDU, 5-10 and 1-4, had too much Baptiste and Ubilla however to just go away. A Baptiste three with with 6:42 left had the Knights back within eight at 76-68. A free throw by Brice Brooks with 4:00 left had the Pioneers back up ten at 81-70. A 9-3 Knight run, capped by a Ubilla layup cut the SHU lead to just five, 84-79 with 1:31 left.

The Pioneers tried to use the clock, but FDU fouled Shubik with 1:11 to play and he made one of two to push the lead back to six. After Hazard missed a three at the other end, Howard answered with a dunk to put the Knights away. Ubilla drained one more three with :13 left for the final score. He finished the contest 6-10 from three-point range.

Brooks finished with 16 points and eight boards for the Pioneers, while Hassan was also in double digits with 15 points. Shubik added six assists and five steals to his scoring totals. Sacred Heart finished the game shooting 54 percent from the floor (34-63).