March 6, 2008

Final Stats

FAIRFIELD, CT - Senior forward Brice Brooks (Silverdale, WA) poured in a game-high 22 points, while senior guard Drew Shubik (Stoystown, PA) added 15 points and eight assists to lead #3 Sacred Heart University to a 84-71 win over #6 Central Connecticut State University in the quarterfinals of the Northeast Conference Tournament Thursday night.

Sacred Heart, now 17-13, jumped out to a 14-4 lead after a three by sophomore Ryan Litke (Windsor, CT) with just under six minutes gone in the game. A Marcus Palmer (Los Angeles, CA) jumper for Central with 11:23 left in the half cut the Pioneer lead 16-12. The Pioneers used an 8-0 spurt to double up the Blue Devils again, 24-12, with 8:07 to go in the half. Senior guard Drew Shubik (Stoystown, PA) and junior Ryon Howard (Bronx, NY) both hit treys in the run.

Sophomore Joe Seymore (New Castle, DE) tried to shoot the Blue Devils back into the game and canned back-to-back threes to cut the Pioneer lead to 32-24 with 2:37 left in the half. After the second trey, SHU coach Dave Bike called a 30-second timeout to break the CCSU momentum. The Pioneers scored the last seven points of the game, five of them by sophomore Chauncey Hardy (Middletown, CT) to take a 39-24 lead into the intermission.

"We scored, than they would," said Bike. "I thought in the first half they hurt us too many times with guarding off the ball. We knew we had to find our open guys. It was one of the huge timeouts called this year for sure."

The Pioneers widened the lead to 50-31 in the first four minutes of the second half. Shubik canned a three with 12:46 left to give SHU a 57-39 lead. It also put Shubik over the 1,000-point mark for his career.

A Danny Powell (Stratford, CT) floater in the lane with 8:42 left cut the SHU lead to 63-51, but Corey Hassan (Merrimack, NH) answered quickly at the other end for the Pioneers. That basket was part of a 14-3 run that saw the Pioneers take their biggest lead at 77-54 with 5:03 left.

Senior Tristan Blackwood (Toronto, ONT), the NEC's all-time leader in three-point shooting, led Central with 15 points, nine of them from the free throw line. He was just 2-10 from the floor. Freshman Aaron Hall (Syracuse, NY) finished with 13, while Seymore added 12. Central, which finishes the season 14-16, shot 41 percent from the field (24-58).

"The situation came up where we had to play them twice in a row and I didn't want that," said co-captain Shubik. "Even though they are having a so-called down year, Coach Dickenman would get them going. We watched tape and came out with a plan to contest shots and we made his (Blackwood's) day hard."

"We fooled around with defending Blackwood a little bit," Bike said. "We put Drew at the top and Ryon Howard at the free throw line, so we bothered him and that's what we were looking for."

Hassan finished with a career-high 18 points, while Hardy finished with 12. The Pioneers committed just eight turnovers and shot 55 percent from the floor, including 66 percent in the second half (19-29). SHU turned the ball over just eight times.

"We couldn't stop them tonight," said Central coach Howie Dickenman. "We played a good team. Even when they brought players off the bench we couldn't stop them. It just seemed like our young players were like deers in the headlights."