Bears Open 2013 With Road Loss to Drew

MADISON, N.J. – Despite a pair of double-doubles by sophomore David Louison (Brooklyn, NY/St. Edmund Prep) and freshman Michael Megafu (Brooklyn, NY/Nazareth Regional), the St. Joseph's College (Brooklyn) men's basketball team dropped a 75-64 decision at Drew University on Monday evening to open the second half of the season.

St. Joseph's (8-4) drops their 2013 opener, snapping a three-game winning streak in the process while the Rangers (6-7) winning their first game of the new year following a loss to Susquehanna University on Saturday in their Landmark Conference opener.

Louison led the Bears securing his eighth double-double of the season with 18 points and a game-high 13 caroms while shooting 8-of-18 from the field. Megafu also picked up his eighth double-double – both Louison and Megafu tied for No. 3 in Division III – scoring 12 points and securing 11 rebounds.

Also for St. Joseph's, freshman Matt O'Neill (Brooklyn, NY/St. Edmund Prep) chipped in 11 points shooting 3-of-6 from beyond the arc off the bench and sophomore Vernon Maddox (Staten Island, NY/St. Peter's) contributed seven points while dishing out four assists. Junior David Ortiz (Brooklyn, NY/Christ the King) had a game-high five assists.

The Rangers were paced by four players in double figures led by Luke Glass who dropped in 20 points and dished out a team-high four assists. John Ford finished with a near double-double scoring 15 points shooting an impressive 6-of-10 from the field and 3-of-4 from distance while securing nine rebounds. Mike Klinger chipped in 11 points and eight rebounds and Chris Capelli contributed 10 points and seven rebounds.

Drew raced out to 22-10 lead nine minutes in and held a double-digit advantage for most of the game. St. Joseph's cut the lead to nine, 34-25 with 1:58 left before intermission but seven unanswered by John Ford gave the Rangers a 41-25 advantage heading into the locker room.

The second stanza began in the Rangers favor building an 18-point lead, 45-27, with 18:33 remaining, the largest in the game. The Bears chipped away at the deficit managing to reach single digits on two occasions, but Drew went on a 7-0 run to build the lead back to 16 with 4:50 remaining.

A Louison layup off a Maddox feed brought the lead down to eight, 66-58, with just over two minutes to play, but the Bears couldn't get any closer, Drew sinking 9-of-12 from the charity stripe in the final minutes to seal the victory.

The Bears coming off a month break showed some rust shooting 34 percent (11-of-32) in the first-half but improved to 44 percent (15-of-34) in the second-half. As was their Achilles' heel in the first half of the schedule, the Bears struggled from the line shooting only 29 percent (6-of-21) while Drew shot 73 percent (22-of-30) from the charity stripe, which proved to be the difference. The Rangers also won the battle on the boards outrebounding the Bears 52-40 and held a 20-9 edge in second-chance scoring.

St. Joseph's continues the second half of the schedule on the road traveling to Staten Island on Thursday, January 10th for a 7:30 p.m. matchup with the College of Staten Island.