CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Franciscan men's basketball team improved to 2-1 on the young season as the Barons defeated Keystone College, 79-71, in the consolation game of the Bill Sudek Tournament hosted by Case Western Reserve, Saturday afternoon.

After a slow start for Franciscan, the Barons used a 12-2 run to pull within four, 22-18 with 6:55 to play. The Giants pushed their lead back to six, 28-22, at the 4:27 mark thanks to a pair of free throws but that would be the largest lead they would take for the rest of the game. Sophomore Sean Hickey (North Olmstead, OH/Holy Name) took the ball the other way and finished off a layup in the paint to get the Barons back to within four, 28-24. After a Keystone turnover, junior John Noce (Brewster, NY/John F. Kennedy Catholic) fed the ball to classmate Matt Trent (Cleveland, OH/Trinity) under the basket for the easy layup. Keystone turned the ball over on their next possession and once again Noce found an open teammate, this time it was Hickey with the jumper to tie the game 28-28 with 3:16 to play in the first.

After a quick 7-3 run but the Giants, Keystone led 35-31 with just over a minute to play but the Barons continued to pressure Keystone, not willing to settle for a halftime deficit. Junior Joe Schriner (Bluffton, OH/Bluffton) hit a pair of free throws on the Barons next possession and Franciscan got a team defensive rebound on Keystone's next trip down the court. Hickey missed the ensuing three but after a defensive rebound and turnover by Keystone got the ball back to the Barons, Hickey drove into the lane and finished a layup to tie the game 35-35. A Franciscan foul with just four seconds left in the half set the Giants back to the free throw line. Ray Mills hit the second of two shots and Noce went coast-to-coast on in inbound and went over a Keystone defender for the buzzer-beating layup to give Franciscan a 37-36 lead at the break.

Noce wasted little time coming of out the break and hit a three in the corner in front of his bench off a pass from Scrhiner to push the Baron lead to four, 40-36. Franciscan maintained the lead until the 12:02 mark when a layup from Jeremy Jordan to give Keystone a 47-46 lead. Trent was fouled on the next Baron possession and hit both free throws to give Franciscan back the lead 48-47. After a back-and-forth three minutes that featured three lead changes and a tie, Hickey put the Barons up for good, 54-51, with a three after Trent grabbed an offensive board with 9:42 to play.

The Barons used a 9-0 run over the next 2:40 to push their lead to 60-51 but the run was stopped by a layup from Jordan. The layup kicked off an 8-0 run for the Giants as they trimmed the lead down to one, 60-59 but once again Trent drew a foul and was perfect at the line to push the lead back to three, 62-59, with 5:05 to play. After another Keystone layup, Trent grabbed an offensive board and finished a layup and hit the free throw after the foul to kick off an 8-0 run to give Franciscan a 69-61 lead and control of the ball game. With just 13 seconds left in the contest, senior Juwan Perkins (Detroit, MI/Oak Park) grabbed the rebound off of his own missed free throw and went right back to the hoop to put away the layup and give Franciscan its largest lead of the game, 79-69. Jalen Flynn finished off the contest with a layup the other way but Franciscan would take the contest, 79-71.

Hickey led the Barons with 21 points while Trent posted his second double-double of the season with 18 points and 12 rebounds. Trent was 8-of-9 from the free throw line and was 5-for-12 from the field. Noce finished the day with seven assists and 14 points. Schriner rounded out the four Barons in double figures as he posted 10 points and had four steals and eight rebounds for the game.

Following the tournament, Trent was named to the All-Tournament team.

The Barons shot 45.6% from the floor and was 21-28 from the free throw line. Franciscan out-rebounded the Giants 44-30.

Franciscan wraps up its road trip to start the year as the Barons head to Grove City on Tuesday for a 7:00 pm contest.