ERIE, Pa. - The Mercyhurst men's basketball team rebounded off their loss at East Stroudsburg and began the new decade with a bang as they took a 10-0 lead early in the first and used it to go wire-to-wire in a convincing 73-58 win over Seton Hill University in their PSAC West opener on Friday night at the Mercyhurst Athletic Center.
MiyKah McIntosh,
Joel Ufele, and back-to-back threes from
Trystan Pratapas put the Lakers up 10-0 in the opening five minutes of the game. That woke up the visiting Griffins as Anthony Karabatsos and a triple by Jimmy Moon pulled them to within 10-5 at the 6:01 mark. Mercyhurst continued their early dominance with another 10-0 charge with buckets for
Zach McIntire, Ufele, Pratapas, and McIntosh to lead by 15, 20-5 at the halfway point.
A three and layup from Tommy Sekunda cut the margin to 24-12 with 6:55 to play in half one. Three consecutive foul shots for
Steve Cannady pushed the lead back out to 27-12. With five minutes left the Lakers still led 27-14, and grew on that as two at the line by McIntosh along with a three from
Nicholas Lang stretched the gap to 32-14. The two sides shared the final ten points to keep Mercyhurst ahead 37-19 at half.
The Lakers did not let Seton Hill close the distance coming out of the break as a three from Pratapas, a layup for McIntosh, and free throw by
Cameron Gross kept Mercyhurst ahead 43-25 at the five minute mark. Nathan Davis stuck a triple and Moon hit on a layup to make it 45-30, but back-to-back layups from
Michael Bradley quickly extended the lead back out to 49-30. Bradley gave the home side their largest advantage of the contest at 55-35 with 10:14 to play. Moon thought he may have given the Griffins a lifeline with a layup at the 14:03 mark making it 63-47. A 10-4 Lakers charge finished off by a Gross layup pushed the advantage out to 73-51 under three minutes to go. Seton Hill closed on a 7-0 run, but it was not enough as Mercyhurst cruised to the 73-58 win.
Mercyhurst shot 52% from the field, 43.8% outside the arc, and 58.3% on the line, while Seton Hill shot 35.8% along with 33.3% from three and 81% at the charity stripe. The Lakers were outscored off the bench 33-16, but carried a 36-32 edge on points in the paint.
McIntosh led the way with 18, followed by Pratapas (14) and Bradley (11). Lang and Ufele each chipped in seven, while McIntire and Gross added five. Lang was the leading rebounder with nine.
The Griffins put two in double-digits as Chimaoboi Ezekwesili had 13 and Moon finished with 11. Moon also pulled down a game-high 10 boards.
Mercyhurst returns to action on Monday, January 6 when they travel to sixth-ranked Indiana University of Pennsylvania beginning at 7:30 pm.
