SCRANTON, Pa. – The University of Scranton men's basketball team (1-0) pulled away from the FDU-Florham Devils (0-2) in a 69-56 victory as part of the opening round of the Hilton Scranton Invitational on Friday night at the John Long Center in Scranton.
With the victory, the Royals advance to take on Farmingdale State on Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. in the Hilton Scranton Invitational championship game. Farmingdale State was a 115-95 winner over Marywood in Friday's other opening round contest.
The two teams traded baskets for much of the early stages of the first half and FDU-Florham held a 16-14 edge before sophomore EJ Matthews-Spratley (Cherry Hill, N.J./Cherry Hill East) hit a jumper to ignite a 14-5 run that fellow sophomore Matthew Hanley (Staten Island, N.Y./Monsignor Farrell) capped with a layup to make it 28-21. FDU-Florham battled back to draw within five at 34-29, but Scranton used consecutive jumpers in the final two minutes from Matthews-Spratley and sophomore Jon Spatola (Marlboro, N.J./Marlboro) to take a 41-32 lead into the locker room.
Spatola and senior Tahaj Parland (Neptune, N.J./Mater Dei) buried threes on consecutive possessions early in the second half that stretched the lead into double digits at 47-34. From there, the Devils were unable to get any closer than seven the rest of the way (53-46) and Parland then tallied four straight points to kickstart a 12-4 run that resulted in a 65-50 advantage with 4:07 to play. Scranton held FDU-Florham to just six points over the final 4:07 to preserve the victory.
Spatola led the Royals with 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting and also added four steals, while Matthews-Spratley tallied 14 points, a career-high seven assists and five rebounds in the victory. Elsewhere for Scranton, junior Will McLoughlin (Glen Rock, N.J./Glen Rock) contributed 10 points and eight rebounds to go along with nine points, six assists and five boards from Parland.
Christopher Smith paced FDU-Florham with 17 points.
The Royals shot 46.6% (27-of-58) from the floor and 23.1% (6-of-26) from deep on the night and the Devils were 23-of-51 (45.1%) from the field and 4-of-15 (26.7%) from beyond the arc.
--ROYALS--
