Marist Drops Third Straight in Loss to Monmouth

2/21/20

Marist suffered a heartbreaking 65-61 defeat against Monmouth Friday, after rallying late to send the game to Overtime.

The Marist Red Foxes entered Friday’s game against the Monmouth Hawks, coming off two tough losses to the Iona Gaels and the Fairfield Stags. Marist sat at 5-9 in Divisional play putting them in 10th place in the standings, while Monmouth maintained the four seed with an 8-6 in conference record entering the day. Monmouth was coming off a tough 77-72 loss on Sunday against Niagara.

Marist once again relied on sophomore guard Matthew Herasme, who led the team in minutes the previous two games with 38 and 42, finishing second on the team in scoring with 15 points. Junior guard Michael Cubbage entered leading Marist in nearly every statistical category but was unable to continue that trend in Friday’s game as he had one of his lowest scoring outputs all season finishing with only six points. Marist’s defensive focus was on Monmouth guard Deion Hammond who is third in the MAAC conference in scoring, averaging 16.1 points per game. Hammond also had one his worst scoring outputs of the season, scoring only seven points on 3-12 shooting.

The game got off to a sloppy start as both teams combined for seven turnovers in the first five minutes of gameplay. Tyler Saint-Furcy was the main culprit for Marist as he had three turnovers during that span.

Sloppy play continued as Marist finished the first half with 11 turnovers and shot 29% from the field. Much of the same went for Monmouth who did not hit a single shot from distance in the first half missing all 10 of their attempts from behind the arc, while shooting only 37% from the field.

Despite trailing majority of the half, Monmouth guard George Papas hit a clutch layup through contact to end the half and give Monmouth a 23-22 lead entering the break.

After a slow start in the first half, Monmouth came out of the second half with a bang roaring out to a 7-0 start. But, Marist roared right back scoring nine consecutive points to retake the lead.

Unfortunately for Marist, center Jordan Jones left the game with an undisclosed injury, but was able to return less than five minutes after exiting.

Midway through the second half, Monmouth was able to break away though, as they went on a 18-7 run, but once again Marist was able to get back into the game, jumping ahead to a brief 52-51 lead.

Despite McCann Arena being fairly empty for this game with very few seats filled in the student section, the Arena got loud in the final three minutes as Marist mounted the comeback.

Herasme came up clutch with two late threes to tie the game and give Marist a brief three-point lead, before Monmouth tied it back up at 58 to send the game to overtime.

George Papas (12 points) scored four points early in overtime to give Monmouth a four-point lead. Tyler Sagl (16 points) hit a late 3 pointer to draw Marist close but ultimately it was a little too late as Monmouth was able to hold on to their lead this time.

When asked about the pressure of playing heavy minutes as a freshmen Sagl said, “No pressure at all, coach believes in me and I just play my game.”

Head coach John Dunne told reporters, “when we’re open from three we’ve got to shoot the ball,” and added that “a lot of the shots that we missed in the overtime and leading up to that, I’ll take every day of the week.”

Marist will get an opportunity to snap their three-game skid Sunday at 2:00 at McCann Arena against the sixth place Niagara Purple Eagles.