Bears Defeat Albany Pharmacy, Clinch HVMAC Regular Season Title

BROOKLYN, NY – The St. Joseph's College men's basketball team captured their sixth straight Hudson Valley Men's Athletic Conference regular season title defeating Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences on Saturday evening.

Junior guard Justin Gist (Newsome, FL/Newsome) led St. Joseph's (7-13, 5-0 HVMAC) with 24 points, seven rebounds, four steals and four assists.  Senior forward Wilkerson Exantus (Brooklyn, NY/Nazareth) had a career game, scoring a career-high 20 points and pulling down 10 rebounds for his fifth career double-double.

Senior guard Lew Monaco (Staten Island, NY/Msgr. Farrell) added 14 points and dished out four assists, sharing game-high honors with Gist.  Junior forward Jon Matzelle (Maspeth, NY/St. Francis Prep) chipped in 11 points.

Mickey Shrivastava paced Albany Pharmacy (7-8, 3-2 HVMAC) with 21 points, connecting on five three-pointers.  Peter Aiken amassed 20 points and 12 rebounds, Ben Sheppard added 17 and Brad Allen grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds.

Albany Pharmacy took an early four point lead, but a 19-5 run gave St. Joseph's a lead they wouldn't relinquish.  Exantus provided the spark, scoring 11 of the Bears first 14 points in the opening six minutes.  St. Joseph's led by as many as 18 before taking a 49-36 advantage into the lockers.

Albany Pharmacy scored on their first three possessions to cut the deficit to six points.  St. Joseph's scored the next eight points unanswered to push their lead back to 14.  After the Bears built their largest lead of the game at 18, the Panthers went on a 15-2 run midway through the period set off by Shrivastava who scored eight points in less than a minute.  Albany Pharmacy kept close for the remainder of the frame, but could not get any closer than four points.  With two minutes left and St. Joe's up five, Exantus made an emphatic layup and was fouled on the play, igniting the crowd.  This swung the momentum back in favor of the Bears and they extended their lead to 10 with 1:38 to play which became too large of a margin to overcome.

The Panthers outshot the Bears 45 percent to 38 percent, however St. Joseph's shot 74 percent from the free throw line (20-for-27) while Albany Pharmacy only attempted 11 free throws for the game.  Albany Pharmacy held a slight edge in rebounding (49-48) but St. Joseph's won the turnover battle (13-22) and scored 10 more points off turnovers.

St. Joseph's returns to action on Monday, February 8 for a tough road battle against Brooklyn College who is on an 11-game winning streak.  Game time is set for 7:30 PM.