FEBRUARY 17, 2016

KING'S MEN HOLD ON FOR 74-67 OVERTIME WIN OVER DELAWARE VALLEY

WILKES-BARRE — The King's College men's basketball team nearly squandered an 18-point second-half lead but the Monarchs never gave up the lead and posted a gutty 74-67 overtime win over visiting Delaware Valley University Wednesday night in Scandlon Gymnasium.

With the win, King's improved to 12-12 overall and 6-7 in Freedom Conference play while Delaware Valley slipped to 17-7 and 8-5 in league competition.

After taking a 26-21 lead into the half-time break, the Monarchs used  17-4 run to start the second stanza to forge a 43-25 advantage with 12:05 remaining after a three-pointer by Connor Hughes.

But the Aggies slowly chipped away and eventually tied the game at 59-59 with 0:29 to play. King's took a 61-59 lead on a driving lay-up from Dan Rutecki with 0:05 left but the Aggies went the length of the floor on the inbounds play and Tyliek Kimbrough scored on a driving layup of his own at the buzzer to send the game to overtime.

From there the Monarchs took a 63-61 lead on a Jake Barber jumper. After an Aggie miss, Tom Heston was fouled and made one-of-two charity tosses to push the King's lead to 64-61 with 3:38 on the clock. After a Kimbrough bucket brought Delaware Valley to within 64-63, Rutecki was fouled and made both shots to stretch the lead to 66-63 with 3:14 to play. After the Aggies answered with a bucket, King's made it a 67-65 lead when Heston again made one-of-two foul shots at the 1:42 mark.

After an Aggie miss, Heston scored inside to give KIng's a 69-65 lead with 1:13 remaining. Another Aggie miss from three-point range resulted in one-of-two free throws for John Fazzini to extend the Monarch lead to 70-65 with 0:40 to play.  After Delaware Valley got a pair of foul shots from Andre Butler to cut the score to 70-67 with 0:35 left, the Aggies were forced to foul. Rutecki and Barber combined for four straight free throws for the Monarchs, the last two coming with 0:17 remaining to seal the win.

King's was led by Rutecki with 20 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists and the Monarch junior forward is now 19 points shy of reaching the 1,000-point plateau for his career.  Heston added 15 points , 14 rebounds, and four assists while Chris Fazzini and Connor Hughes added 11 points each.

Chris Moran led Delaware Valley with 23 points and 13 rebounds while Butler and Kimbrough added 14 and 13 points respectively.

The Monarchs played a stingy zone defense that prevented the more athletic Aggies from penetrating. Instead, Delaware Valley was forced to shoot more from the outside tha, they wowuld prefer. The Aggies hoisted up 49 three-pointers in the game, making just eight for a 16.3 long-range shooting percentage. Delaware Valley shot just 28.9 (24-83) for the game. The Monarchs also won teh all-important rebounding battle 49-43.

The King's win left the Monarchs tied for fifth-place in the Freedom Conference with Manhattanville.  Both teams trail fourth-place Wilkes by one game heading into the regular-season finale. The top four teams qualify for the Freedom Conference Tournament.

King's will close out the regular-season with a showdown with crosstown rival Wilkes at 3:00 p.m. in the Marts Center.