STEUBENVILLE – The Franciscan men's basketball team battled until the final horn but visit Hilbert Hawks made 11 free throws in the final two minutes to hold off the Barons and win 81-69, Saturday afternoon.

With 2:50 left in the contest, freshman Joe Schriner made a layup after classmate Josh York grabbed a defensive rebound to cut the Hawk lead to nine points, 70-61. After Kirkland Ottey hit the front end of a trip to the free throw line to push the lead back to 10, 71-61, the Hawks made four-straight free throws to extend their lead to 14, 75-61. Junior Keoni Sablan sunk a deep three with 1:13 to play but Jalen Smith went 2-for-2 on his next trip to the line to keep the game just out of reach for the Barons. Sophomore Juwan Perkins finished a Garrison Holmes layup with 31 seconds left to keep the deficit at 11, but once again Smith was perfect at the free throw line to extend the lead to 13, 79-66. Schriner made the last field goal of the game as he hit a three-pointer from the top of the key but Masia Phillips rounded out the scoring with two free throws to bring the score to its final, 81-69 in favor of Hilbert.

"We are right there," said head coach Joe Wallace. "We were in this until the end – our defense just needs to keep getting better. We have taken a lot of positive steps forward but we just aren't there yet. We will get there. We just need to keep working hard."

Hilbert raced out to a 16-8 lead to open the game and forced the Barons to use their first timeout with 13:28 to play in the opening period. Franciscan used that timeout to regroup and begin to whittle away at the Hawk lead. Freshman Michael Mendicino continued his hot outside shooting with a three at 13:06 to cut the lead back to five, 16-11, and the two teams went back and forth with baskets until Sablan hit a three with 10:48 to play. Derrek Carman made a jumper to push the Hawk lead to 22-16 with 10:01 to play. Junior Garrison Holmes grabbed an offensive board on the Barons' next possession and put it back up to cut the lead back to four, 22-18. Carman missed a jumper on Hilbert's next possession and freshman John Noce grabbed the defensive rebound and took a step back off the three-point arc and sunk the shot to get the Barons to within one, 22-21. Holmes tied the game at 22-22 after hitting the back end of a trip to the free throw line with 8:36 to play.

The game was tied three separate times of the next three and a half minutes until York gave the Barons a 30-29 lead with a free throw at 4:18. Schriner hit another three-pointer to give FUS its largest lead of the game, 33-29, with 3:58 to play but the Hawks hung around and eventually took a 34-33 lead off  a three from Kyle Kline. A Hawk free throw made it a two-point game but Sablan tied it once again with a layup at 35-35. Joseph Brainiecki made a pair of free throws at the end of the half to give the Hawks a 37-35 lead at the break.

Franciscan kept the score close in the beginning of the second half until Phillips made a jumper at 10:25 to push the Hawk lead to 57-46. Perkins cut the deficit back to eight after completing the traditional three-point play. The Hawks used a pair of three's from Ottey to push the lead to 14 points, 66-51, and Hilbert maintained a double-digit lead until Schriner's layup at 2:50.

Sablan led the Barons with 18 points while Schriner chipped in 13 and Perkins added 10. York came off the bench with an 11-point, 11-rebound double-double for FUS, his first as a Baron.

"Keoni had another good game for us and Josh's double-double was big for us today," continued Coach Wallace. "Juwan continues to play hard and fill out the stat sheet – 10 points, a couple of blocks and six rebounds. That's what we need out of him."

Franciscan takes a short break for the Christmas holiday before returning to the court on January 4 at Pitt.-Greensburg when the Barons square off with the Bobcats at 8pm.