Box Score STEUBENVILLE – Senior Christian Duke finished his career in a Baron jersey in impressive fashion as he led the Franciscan men's basketball team with 25 points and pulled down a career-best 17 rebounds in FUS' 84-70 loss to D'Youville, Saturday afternoon.
Duke score 14 of his 25 points in the second half as the Barons kept the pressure on D'Youville. Trailing by one at halftime, Duke made a layup off a pass from junior Jacob Divens and drew a foul to complete the traditional three-point play to give FUS its first lead of the second, half 39-37. D'Youville rebounded and scored the game's next seven points to re-take the lead 44-39 and build a 14-point lead, 57-43 with 13:33 to play. The Barons began to chip away thanks to a trio of layups from Duke and sophomores Garrison Homles and Thomas Rush to cut the lead back down to eight, 57-49.
Duke pulled down an offensive board off his own missed shot put the ball back up for a layup to pull the Barons to within seven, 58-51. Juan Roseles answered for the Spartans before sophomore
Jake Telepak hit a pair of layups for the Barons. After a layup by Zach Blask for the Spartans with 7:22 to play, Telepak answered with one of his own to keep the gap at four, 62-58 with 7:05 to play. Duke closed the gap to just one, 62-61, following a good free throw after a foul on his layup but the Spartans used a 6-0 run over the next two and half minutes to push the lead back to seven, 68-61
Divens hit a pair of free throws at the 3:31 mark but the Spartans had an answer for all of the Barons baskets over the final minutes of play to build a comfortable 78-65 lead with under a minute to play. The Spartans ended the game on a 6-5 run to seal the 84-70 victory.
In the first, the Barons kept the pressure on the Spartans as the guests never led by more than eight points and held a 36-32 advantage with 1:12 to play in the first following a layup from Holmes. The Spartans scored the half's final five points to take the 37-36 advantage into the locker room
The Barons shot 32.9% (24-73) from the field but out-rebounded the Spartans 50-43. The Barons scored 17 second chance points and held a 25-15 advantage in points off the bench.
FUS wraps up its season at 1-23 and a 1-17 mark in the AMCC.
