ERIE, Pa. – After a strong first half, the Franciscan men's basketball team struggled to get going in the second and fell to Penn State Behrend, 91-51, Saturday afternoon.

The two teams engaged in a back and forth battled to open the game as Franciscan took its first lead of the contest with 17:19 to play as senior Derrick David forced a turnover and stole the ball and finished off the play with a layup at the other end of the court to give the Barons a 7-5 lead.

After four lead changes over the next six minutes, the Barons took their final lead of the game at 17-16 thanks to a layup from Juwan Perkins at 11:48. The Lions answered with back to back threes to build a 22-17 lead, which would prove to be as close as FUS would get for the rest of the contest.

With 5:44 to play in the first, Behrend took its largest lead of the contest up to that point as Justin Gorny made a jumper to give the Lions a 34-24 lead. Junior Keoni Sablan answered with a three on Franciscan's next possession to cut the lead back down to seven, 34-27. After layup from Aaron Foldi and a good free throw by Josh York trimmed the deficit to five, 35-30, the Lions closed out the half with a 12-1 run to take a 47-31 lead into the locker room.

Despite shooting 83.3% (10-for-12) from the free throw line, the Barons couldn't find a good rhythm from the floor and the Lions continued to build on their lead and shot 50.0% from the floor (17-for-34) to close out a 91-41 win.

Sablan shot 5-for-11 from the floor and finished the day with a team-high 18 points while freshman Matt Trent pulled down eight rebounds and posted 11 points. David handed out four assists for the Barons.

Franciscan returns home when the Barons welcome La Roche to Kuzma Court for an 8pm AMCC matchup.