LEWISBURG — St. Francis fell behind early and couldn’t get over the hump in a 70-58 loss at Bucknell on Saturday night.
Patrick Behan led the Bison charge with 20 second-half points to finish with game-high 23 points and 12 rebounds.
Devin Sweetney finished with 16 points and four rebounds for the Red Flash (1-3), who lost their third straight. Will Felder added 11 points, nine rebounds and three blocks while Anthony Ervin had nine points and eight rebounds.
“We made some progress (Saturday night),” St. Francis coach Don Friday said. “When we got here, I asked our kids to accomplish three things (Saturday night). I asked them to play hard, to execute on offense, and to compete on defense. There has never been a shutout in college basketball, and there wasn’t one (Saturday night). We’ll hang our hat on that.”
Cold shooting by the Red Flash allowed Bucknell to jump out to an early lead. Sweetney made a pair of free throws to open the game, but the Bison scored eight straight points. It wound up being St. Francis’ only lead of the night as Bucknell answered with a 9-0 run and held the Red Flash without a point for nearly six minutes to take a 19-6 lead. Sorena Orandi stopped the bleeding with a free throw and had four points during a 12-3 St. Francis run that cut the lead to 22-17 with 4:11 remaining in the half. However, the Bison closed the half on an 8-3 run to take a 30-20 lead into the break.
St. Francis shot just 23.3 percent in the first half.
Bucknell came out of the break with five straight points to take its largest lead of the night, 35-20, just 2:20 into the second half. Joe Willman made a layup with 13:12 to play in the game when the Red Flash made a run.
Chris Johnson started it with a 3-pointer and St. Francis scored 10 of the next 12 points, all by freshmen, to pull within two at 45-43 with 10:08 remaining.
But Bucknell again pulled away with a 7-0 run, and the Red Flash never got any closer than five points the rest of the way.
The Red Flash shot 50 percent (14-of-28) from the field in the second half. They finished 21-of-58 (36.2 percent) on the night, and were outrebounded 43-39.
Notes: SFU’s 70-58 loss snapped a two-game win streak against the Bison. ... Wednesday’s home game against Lehigh will mark St. Francis’ fourth against a Patriot League opponent this season. ... Friday returned to Bucknell for the first time since serving nine years as an assistant under legendary head coach Pat Flannery, who retired after the 2007-08 season.
