Owings Mills, MD – Keystone College's men's basketball team notched a 73-64 victory over the University of La Verne on Saturday afternoon at the Hoopsville National Invitational Classic presented by Buffalo Wild Wings that is being hosted by Stevenson University.  The Giants, who snapped a brief, two-game losing skid, improve to 3-2 on the season after dealing the Leopards (3-1) their first loss of the season.  Both teams finish this weekend's tournament with a 1-1 record.  
 
Keystone build a 10-2 lead over the first 3:56 of Saturday afternoon's game and would stay in front for entire half.  The Giants used a 10-5 run to extend their advantage to 11 points, 31-20, with 5:08 remaining in the opening half after Jesse Longmire (Harlem, NY/John S. Burke Catholic) scored on a layup which forced La Verne to call a timeout.  After regrouping, the Leopards went on an 8-1 spurt that cut their deficit to 32-28 with 3:25 left after Ronn See hit a pair of free throws and the two teams traded baskets in the closing minutes of the period with Keystone holding a 38-35 advantage at the intermission.
 
Dan Candemeres (Holbrook, NY/Sachem East) led Keystone with 11 points in the opening half while Longmire tallied eight points and Duncan Lunsford (Marietta, GA/Sprayberry) added seven points.  The Giants connected on 54.5 percent of their field goal attempts in the period including a 3-6 effort from three-point range.
 
See and Eric Becker scored eight first half point apiece to pace La Verne offensively, as the Leopards hit on 51.9 percent of their attempts from the floor in the opening stanza while being held to just 2-11 shooting from beyond the arc in the first 20 minutes of play.
 
Keystone scored the first nine points of the second half to push their lead to 47-35, but La Verne began to chip away at the Giants lead, eventually narrowing the gap to four points at 55-51 with 8:57 remaining on the clock.  Keystone countered by scoring the next eight points, all by Lunsford, to push their lead to 61-51 with just over six minutes left.  Trailing by 11 points at 66-55 after Candemeres knocked down a pair off free throws, the Leopards used a 6-1 burst to cut their deficit to six points with 1:47 to play, but the Giants would thwart off La Verne's comeback bid.
 
Lunsford led all the players with 21 points - including 14 in the second half - and eight rebounds on the evening.  Longmire added 20 points and led all players with four steals in the contest while Candemeres finished with 15 points to go along with a team-best three assists.  Keystone shot 50 percent from the field for the game, and a night after attempting 45 three-pointers, went 4-12 from beyond the arc in Saturday's win.  The Giants shot 69 percent from the free throw line for the game including a solid, 18-22 (81.8 percent) effort in the second half.
 
See finished the contest with 14 points to lead La Verne, who also got 10 points from Becker.  Four different Leopards including Becker tied for the team-lead in rebounds with four apiece while Alonzo Young and Khaneal Mason had three assists apiece in the loss.  For the game, La Verne connected on 43.9 percent of their field goal attempts including a cold, 18.8 percent clip from three-point land.  The Leopards also shot just 57.9 percent from the free throw line.      
 
Keystone will be back in action on Tuesday night when they visit Hilbert College for a non-conference game scheduled to tipoff at 7:00 p.m. in Hamburg, NY.