Kyle Hammonds
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Senior Kyle Hammonds had a team-high 12 points against Trinity

King's Men's Basketball Edges Trinity to Reach Tourney Final

11/22/2013 8:27:00 PM

Box Score
NOVEMBER 22, 2013

KING'S MEN'S BASKETBALL HOLDS ON FOR 54-53 WIN OVER TRINITY TO REACH SUSQUEHANNA TOURNEY FINAL

SELINSGROVE -- Senior guard Kyle Hammonds scored 10 of his 12 points in the second half and the King's College men's basketball team held off a late run to hold on to a 54-53 victory over Trinity College of Connecticut in the opening round of the Pepsi/Weis Markets Tip-Off Tournament Friday night at Susquehanna University.

With the win, King's improved to 3-0 and advances to Saturday's 3:00 p.m. title game where it will face host Susquehanna University, an 85-67 winner over Penn State Wilkes-Barre in the other first-round pairing.

After building a 26-25 lead at the half the Monarchs came out of the locker room and immediately went to work. A jumper by Kyle Hamonds and a traditional three-point play from Tim O'Shea pushed the lead to 31-25. 

After Trinity cut the elad to 32-29 on a foul shot by Alex Conaway, the Monarchs responded with four straight points by Hammonds to push the score to 38-29 with 15:45 remaining.  King's eventually took its biggest lead of the game when Hammonds again scored on a driving lay-up to up the Monarch advantage to 44-34 with 12:24 on the clock.

But Trinity battled back with a 9-2 run and cut the lead to 46-45 on a Brian Horn jumper with 8:25 to go. King's, however. answered with baskets from Tom Heston and O'Shea while Dan Rutecki added a pair of free throws to push the score to 52-45 with 4:28 remaining.

Trinity closed to within three again when Hart Gliedman hit two free throws to bring the score to 54-51 with 1:19 left. After a King's turnover Gleidman missed a three-pointer but Edward Ogundeko snared the offensive rebound and was fouled. Ogundeko made both charity tosses to cut the lead to 54-52 with 0:42 to play. 

After another Monarch turnover Trinity had a chance to tie the game but Shay Ajayi's jumper with 0:01 on the clock was off the mark as the Monarchs held on for the victory.

Hammonds had 12 points on 5-of-12 shooting and pulled down four rebounds. Joe Caffrey followed with 11 points and six assists while O'Shea contributed eight points and five boards. Derek Wilkins tallied eight points while Pat O'Donnell chipped in with six points and four boards.

Trinity was led by Ogundeko with 14 points and 14 rebounds while Conaway followed with 11 points and 11 boards.

The King's-Susquehanna title game Saturday will appear on Live Video at the following link:  http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/susquehanna.portal#

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