Box Score

Seniors Combine for 42 Points on Senior Day

Wilkes-Barre, Pa. – Joe Caffrey made his senior day memorable going off for a career-high 31 points to help the King's College men's basketball team to a 76-58 victory over visiting Manhattanville Saturday afternoon in Freedom Conference play.

The Monarchs kept themselves in the conference playoff hunt moving to 13-10 overall and a level 6-6 in league play. The Valiants dropped to 10-13 and 6-6.

King's opened the scoring with a pair of Caffrey 3-pointers sandwiching a Colin Campbell layup to put King's up 6-2. The Monarchs opened up the lead with a 9-2 spurt with Dan Rutecki tallying six points and Caffrey connecting on another trey to extend the King's lead out to 15-4 at the 13:06 mark in the first half.

Jack Bramswig stopped the Monarch run with a dunk at the 12:12 mark. Caffrey answered with a jumper from the elbow, before Alex Cardoza was whistled for a foul and then picked up a technical. The Valiants Connor Quigley made the free throws to cut the Monarch lead to 17-8 at 8:35.

The Monarchs opened up the lead using a 16-5 run capped by a Kyle Hammonds layup on the fast break from Tom Heston to put King's up 34-18 with 2:35 to go in the first half. Manhattanville got a 3-pointer from Quigley to stop the run and then the Valiants turned a King's turnover into a pair of Darius Christmas free throws cutting the lead to 34-18 at the 1:51 mark. After another Monarch turnover Christmas scored a layup to get Manhattanville to within 34-20 with 1:29 in the half. The Monarchs took a 37-22 lead into the break.

King's jumped out in the second half getting a layup for Caffrey on the opening possession sparking a 13-7 spurt that pushed the King's lead to 50-29. Manhattanville pushed back battling back to within 13, 50-37, after an 8-0 run that ended with two Willis Flynn free throw at the 12:09 mark.

Connor Hughes provided the answer for King's netting an old-school 3-point play with 10:53 to play. Andrew Winter scored a layup at the other end, but Hughes connected on a 3-point basket and Rich Douglas scored a layup putting King's back up by a score of 58-39 with 9:13 remaining.

The Valiants put on a final push using a 9-3 spurt to get as close as 61-48 at the 6:15 mark after a Colin Campbell 3-pointer, but four Caffrey free throws pushed the King's lead back out to 65-48 at 5:43 to end the threat. The Monarch lead never fell below 14 the rest of the way.

In addition to Caffrey two other Monarchs scored in double figures with Rutecki just missing his second straight double-double with 21 points and nine rebounds as well as two assists and two steals. Hammonds closed out his senior day with 11 points, three boards and two helpers.

Quigley paced the Valiant offense with 15 points and three rebounds. Bramswig added 10 points and three boards. Campbell finished with nine points.

The Monarchs are back in action on Tuesday when they travel to Misericordia as part of a men's-women's doubleheader with the men's game tipping off at 8:00 p.m.