Box Score

JANUARY 16, 2013

KING'S MEN DOWN WILKES BEHIND 28 FROM FIROINO

WILKES-BARRE –  Matt Fiorino exploded for a career-high 28 points and the King's College defense held host Wilkes University to just 33.3 shooting percent from the floor as  the Monarchs posted an important 71-54 road victory over host and cross-town rival Wilkes University Wednesday in the Marts Center.

With the win, King's improved to 7-9 overall and 2-3 in the Freedom Conference while Wilkes slipped to 7-8 and 0-5.

With King's leading scorer Kyle Hammonds sidelined for the vast majority of the game with the flu, King's trailed early 4-2.  But the Monarchs found a rhythm and countered with a 9-0 run. Matt Fiorino scored a pair of baskets between a Joe Caffrey bucket to give the Monarchs a 6-4 lead. Ian Oakley then scored inside for the Monarchs before Fiorino drained a three-pointer to push the Monarch lead to 11-4 with 14:39 left in the half.

King's then built a 10-point lead when Fiorino made good on a short jumper to up the Monarch advantage to 14-4 at the 13:36 mark. After the Colonels used four straight points from Chris Shovlin to trim the lead to 14-8, the Monarchs got six points from Tim O'Shea to stretch the lead to 20-10.

The Monarchs built on the lead and used four straight points from Pat O'Donnell and a jumper from Fiorino to push the score to 32-17 with 1:43 on the clock. But Wilkes closed out the half with a 8-0 run, keyed by a pair of three-pointer by Tyler Breznitsky, the last coming at the halftime buzzer as Wilkes climbed back to within 32-24 at the break.

In the second half Wilkes got a quick bucket from Shovlin to bring the score to 32-26. King's answered with back-to-back buckets by Fiorino to push the score to 36-26. After a Wilkes basket, Fiorino drained another three-pointer to give the Monarchs a 39-28 lead. Later in the half O'Shea threw down a thunderous dunk on a break-away lay-up and, after a Wilkes miss, Fiorino buried a long three-pointer to give  the Monarchs a 49-35 lead with 11:23 left.

The Colonels used free throws to come to within 53-42 with 5:54 on the clock, but the Monarchs got back consecutive jumpers from O'Shea, the second a three-pointer with 4:50 to go to put the game away as the lead swelled to 58-42.

Fiorino tallied 28 points on 11-of-18 shooting and canned six three-pointers.  O'Shea was also outstanding with 18 points and eight rebounds.

While Fiorino was the offensive star, Caffrey was a standout defensively for King's. Caffrey Wilkes guard Chris Shovlin to just six points before the Wilkes star left the game with a leg injury with 5:54 remaining and the Monarchs ahead 53-42. Caffrey also chipped in with 11 points and six boards.

Hammonds played just eight minutes off the bench for King's and did not score.

For Wilkes, Breznitsky posted a team-high 12 points while Jim Brackett tallied seven.

King's returns to action Saturday when the Monarchs host Manhattanville College at 3:00 p.m.