STEUBENVILLE – The Franciscan men's basketball team dropped its Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference contest to La Roche, 66-51, Wednesday evening.
 
"The support in this gym has been crazy," remarked head coach Joe Wallace. "Everybody was excited to play La Roche – the students, the pep band, all of the bleachers were pulled out with people sitting everywhere and it was great. It just shows you the steps this group has made this year, even though we came up short tonight."
 
The first six minutes of the game featured a back-and-forth affair as junior Matt Trent (Cleveland, OH/Trinity) hit the game's first jumper and the two teams traded the next seven baskets before La Roche took its first lead, 10-8, thanks to a layup from Ray Quan Phifer. Trent answered the bucket with a jumper of his own but Zach Gould's three at the 13:00 minute mark gave the Redhawks the lead for good, 13-10, and Gould's 1,000th career point.
 
Freshman Travis Lien (St. Louis, MO/Kirkwood) grabbed an offensive board and put it back up to cut the lead down to one, 13-12, but La Roche scored six unanswered points to go up by five, 17-12, with 11:24 to play.
 
La Roche took its first double-digit lead of the game with 2:08 to play as Gould hit another three. Tyler Frederick pushed the lead to 14 with a dunk with six seconds left but freshman Justin Mack nailed the deep three as time was expiring to cut the deficit to 11 at the break, 38-27.
 
La Roche used an 14-6 run to open the second half to build an 19-point lead, 52-35. Junior Joe Schriner (Bluffton, OH/Bluffton) hit a pair of jumpers and nailed two free throws to cut the deficit back down to 13, 52-39, with 8:22 to play. The Redhawks maintained at least a 12-point lead for the remainder of the game, despite Franciscan never backing down. With 3:25 to play, Schriner finished a fast-break layup thanks to an assist from junior John Noce (Brewster, NY/John F. Kennedy Catholic) to get the Barons to with 12, 59-47.
 
The Redhawks went on a 7-2 run over the next two minutes to push their lead back to 17, 66-49, but senior Juwan Perkins (Detroit, MI/Oak Park) finished the scoring with a layup thanks to an assist from sophomore Joe Vernau (Irmo, SC/Dutch Fork).
 
"We were good enough to beat others team, I mean La Roche is really good," remarked Coach Wallace. "We didn't shoot the ball particularly well and gave up some second chance shots but the performance, the toughness, the hustle, the effort, and what we brought to the table tonight was good. We just have to be a little bit of a tougher group together in these final four games to accomplish everything we have set out to accomplish.
 
"Everyone may think the main goal this year for this team was to make the tournament, but it wasn't. It hasn't been talked about until right now because it's right in front of us. We have had other goals and we have defined our own success and we've continued to take the steps we needed to. There is so much on the table for this group and I hope it lasts as long as possible."
Schriner led the team with 14 points while Trent added 10 and led the game with eight rebounds. Noce and Mack added a pair of steals each.
 
"Justin Mack has been giving us really good minutes," remarked Coach Wallace with strong agreement from Coach Adam Martello. "His toughness is not showing up in the stat sheet but he is definitely trending up right now, along with Travis.
 
"Joe Vernau is continuing to keep at and his toughness is really coming through."
 
The Barons return home for one final time in the regular season as they host Hilbert on Saturday, February 9 for their senior day at 4:00 pm.