Newburgh, N.Y. – The Mount Saint Mary College Men's Basketball team snapped a four game losing skid and earned a key Skyline Conference victory on Tuesday night with a hard fought 61-58 triumph over visiting St. Joseph's-Brooklyn. Junior Jameson Morton (Woodstock, N.Y.) paced a balanced scoring attack with 14 points.
 
Mount Saint Mary never led in the first half after the Bears got out to a quick 4-0 lead. The Knights would even the score at 6-6 on a Zack Swaby (New Windsor, N.Y.) bucket, but would not be able to pull even again in the half.
 
Following the Swaby conversion, the Mount went over five minutes without scoring until an Isaiah Robinson (Garfield, N.J.) bucket with just under nine minutes left before halftime brought the Knights to within 12-8.
 
The Mount cut the deficit to a single point on an Ethan Fox (Wallingford, Conn.) free-throw, but saw the Bears steadily build their lead to 23-16 on a Frank Reali three-pointer with 4:48 left before halftime. The St. Joseph's advantage grew to a half-high nine points on a Chris Edwards conversion with 2:38 left in the period before the Knights scored seven of the final nine points of the half, including a Fox triple with 37 seconds left, to slice the disadvantage to 29-25 at the intermission.
 
Both teams struggled from the floor in the opening stanza, with St. Joseph's shooting 31.4-percent and Mount converting at 29.0-percent. The two teams combined to go 2-for-18 from three-point range prior to the break and each knocked in six free-throws. Christopher Mikos led the Bears with nine first half points, while the Mount was paced by nine points from Morton.
 
After falling behind by eight early in the second frame, the Mount evened the score at 35-35 on a Kendall Francis (Great Neck, N.Y.) three-pointer and grabbed its first lead of the game when Fox buried a jumper at the 14:19 mark of the second half to push the Knights in front 37-35.
 
The Bears quickly rattled off the next six points to reclaim the lead and spread its lead back to eight points twice in the final 6:49 of regulation. Following a Reali lay-in in transition with 5:57 left that put the Bears up 52-44, the Knights stormed back with the next nine points to surge in front 53-52 on a Paul Sienke (Washington, D.C.) free-throw.
 
After St. Joseph's evened the score at 53-53, Sienke put the Knights in front by three with a conventional three-point play and later gave the Knights the lead for good with a deep three-pointer with 2:11 left to push the Mount in front 59-56.
 
A Dimitri Sirakis bucket with 65 seconds left got the visitors to within a single point, but Francis knocked in a jumper with 32 ticks left to give the Mount the final three-point advantage. The Bears had a pair of looks in the closing seconds, but were unable to convert.
 
Mount Saint Mary improved to 44.8-percent shooting in the second half and knocked in a trio of triples, while St. Joseph's was held to 35.5-percent shooting and a 2-for-10 effort from three-point range. Sienke and Francis keyed the second half surge with 11 points apiece for the Mount.
 
Morton returned to the lineup and led the Mount with 14 points on the strength of a 7-for-7 effort from the free-throw line. He added four rebounds and steal to the winning effort.
 
Sienke finished the night with 13 points for the Mount, going 5-for-11 from the floor and adding seven rebounds. Francis did all of his scoring in the second half and finished the night with five rebounds and a game-high six assists. Fox rounded out a quartet in double-figures with 10 points and a team-high nine rebounds and Swaby came off the bench and added five rebounds and five points for the Knights.
 
St. Joseph's was led by 11 points from Stephane Etheart and received nine points from Sebastian Etheart along with 10 rebounds. Kavan Meiner and Frank Reali each scored nine points and Mikos came off the bench to chip in nine points and a game-high 11 rebounds for the Bears.
 
Mount Saint Mary finished the game shooting 36.7-percent overall and 23.5-percent from three-point range. The Bears rounded out the night shooting 33.3-percent and posted a 3-for-20 effort from three-point range.
 
Tuesday's win pushes Mount Saint Mary to 5-12 overall on the season and to 3-5 in the Skyline Conference. The Knights will be back on the floor Thursday when they play host to the College of Mount Saint Vincent at 8:00 p.m.