FEBRUARY 16, 2006
BOB ZIADIE
KING'S FORGES FIRST PLACE TIE WITH SCRANTON BY DOWNING DREW
WILKES-BARRE -- The King's College men's basketball team forged a
first-place tie in the Freedom Conference standings with the University
of Scranton and clinched at least a second-seed and first-round home
playoff game as the Monarchs posted an 83-67 victory over Drew
University Thursday in Scandlon Gymnasium.
With the win, King's improved to 16-8 overall and joined Scranton with
identical 10-3 Freedom Conference marks. Drew fell to 9-15 and 4-9.
The Monarchs will close out the regular-season on Saturday with a 3:00
p.m. contest at FDU-Florham while Scranton hosts DeSales. A King's win
combined with a Scranton loss would give the Monarchs the top seed in
the conference playoffs. If both King's and Scranton win, however, the
Royals would gain the top-seed by virtue of an MAC tiebreaking criteria.
The Monarchs shot a scorching 61.9 (19-31) percent from the first half
to build a comfortable 49-37 lead at the break thanks to Vince Scalzo,
who scored all of his 16 points in the opening stanza. King's steadily
increased the margin in the second half and eventually took its biggest
lead at 81-52 with 5:51 left following back-to-back baskets by Ian
Gilmartin.
Jim Welsh led the way for King's with 17 points, including five
three-pointers. Kofi Dwebeng netted 12 points while John Soboleski added
10 to join Scalzo as the other double-figure scorers for King's. Shawn
Swim also added nine for King's.
Sam Taub led Drew with 17 points while Chris Lopez followed with 16.
Damon DiLorenzo chipped in with 10 for the Rangers.
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