Montclair, NJ – Sophomore guard Keyon Price scored a career-high 26 points as Montclair State fended off a William Paterson rally in the second half and completed its weekend sweep with an 83-79 victory at the WPU Rec Center on Saturday afternoon.
Freshman Amir Williams talked 16 points in a reserve role as the Red Hawks (2-0, 2-0 NJAC) collected its second straight win against its local rival and sixth in the last seven meetings.
Yvens Monfleury and Jadon Cepeda posted 25 and 19 points, respectively for WPU (0-2, 0-2), which nearly pulled off the comeback after trailing by as many as 24 points in the contest.
Montclair, which led the entire contest, led 14-12 after the first five-plus minutes and then began to pull away with a 16-point run over the next five minutes. Devin Cooper started the run with a three-pointer followed by a Steven Breeman layup. Pryce sandwiched a pair of three's around a Williams layup pushing the lead to 27-12 before a Williams three with 10:41 left widened the gap to 18 points.
MSU would take its largest lead of the half at 48-24 on Williams' layup with four minutes to go. The Pioneers closed out the half on a 10-2 run sending the Red Hawks into the locker room with a 50-34 advantage.
Montclair State shot 51 percent (20-of-39) from the field for the half, including 9-of-18 from three-point range.
In the second half, MSU maintained its double-digit advantage through the first 10 minutes, however, an 8-0 spurt capped by two free throws from Cepeda made the score 59-56 with 8:27 to play. The Red Hawks were able to push that back to nine points as Myles Mitchell-White nailed a three for a 69-60 lead but WPU continued to answer and drew to 72-67 on Michael Gilmore's layup.
Pryce sank two foul shots with 2:16 remaining for a 78-70 lead, which was immediately cut to five on a three-pointer by Cepeda. William Paterson used the charity stripe to get even closer and pulled within 79-78 after Adryan Lopez put back a miss off his own free-throw attempt with 69 seconds left.
The Red Hawks turned the ball over and the Pioneers had a chance to take the lead, but a layup attempt went off the mark. Montclair's Kieran Flanagan was fouled with 25 ticks and hit both for an 81-78 lead. Leading by three, MSU would foul with six seconds left sending WPU's Domenic Mignone to the line. He missed the first and made the second making the score 81-79.
Pryce was fouled quickly on the inbounds and iced the game for Montclair State making both free throw attempts with five seconds left for what turned out to be the final margin.
Breeman finished with 13 points and six rebounds while Cooper added 12 along with seven assists. Irving Callender IV led MSU with nine rebounds.
The Red Hawks are back in action next Friday, February 12 with another NJAC weekend set. Montclair heads to Union, NJ to face Kean University at 5:00 pm in the Harwood Arena. The two teams square off again on Saturday, February 13 at the Panzer Athletic Center in a 2:00 pm tipoff.