ALBANY — Saint Peter’s senior forward Quadir Welton, an All-MAAC First-Team selection, had 15 points and nine rebounds and fellow senior Trevis Wyche had 10 points, with three of those points coming in the game’s final 51 seconds, as the second-seeded Peacocks held off Canisius 61-58 in a MAAC Basketball Championship quarterfinal game Friday night in Times Union Center.
The win, Saint Peter’s seventh straight, moves the team to 19-12 overall and pushes the Peacocks to a semifinal meeting with the winner of Saturday’s Iona vs. Rider game. Canisius sees its tournament run with a record of 18-15.
The Peacocks scored 12-straight points in the first 3:50 of the second half, with Welton and Wyche accounting for five of those points during the run. The Golden Griffins were able to battle back, however, and the Blue and Gold closed the Saint Peter’s lead to 53-47 with 4:31 left to play after junior Jermaine Crumpton slammed home two of his 18 points for the night. During that comeback effort, Canisius’ defense held the Peacocks without a field goal 9:53 of game action, but the field goal-less streak came to an end just moment’s after Crumpton’s dunk, as Antwon Portley drilled a 3-point field goal on the team’s next trip down the floor to make the score 56-47 with 4:10 showing on the clock.
A 3-point make by Crumpton with 42 seconds left in the game cut Saint Peter’s cushion to one at 59-58, but the Peacocks answered once again, as Wyche worked the clock down and scored a lay-up with 13 seconds left to make the score 61-58 in favor of the Peacocks. Canisius, which had no timeouts, raced the ball up the floor and got two looks from 3-point land in the final 9.5 seconds, but both shot attempts banged off the rim and Saint Peter’s was able to secure the victory.
For Canisius, freshman Isaiah Reese came off the bench to score 19 points and grab a career-high 11 rebounds for the Blue and Gold, while Crumpton had 18 points. Senior Kiefer Douse grabbed 10 rebounds in the loss for Canisius, which shot 40 percent from the field and just 23.1 percent from 3-point land.
Saint Peter’s shot 47.9 percent from the floor as a team in the win, the team’s first MAAC Tournament win over Canisius since the 1995 event in Albany.
from GoGriffs.com via IFTTT
All WNY is made possible thanks to coffee and sleep deprivation.
We appreciate your readership. We like money, too.
