Buffalo, NY – The D'Youville men's basketball team won their second consecutive conference game on Monday evening, blowing out the Pitt.-Bradford Panthers by the final score of 104-79.

The Spartans started off red hot on both ends of the court. Leading 4-1 after 1:30 of play, D'Youville went on a 14-0 run to take a dominating 18-1 lead after just 4:46 of game action. Bradford would slowly but surely get back into the game, trimming their deficit to 12 just a few minutes later. With the Panthers getting their offense going, the Spartans were able to keep their offense firing as well with Jagdeep Drumgoole (Rochester, NY/Early College) drilling a three with under 10 minutes to go in the half to make the score 32-16.

Bradford's offense was stuck at 16 points for nearly two minutes while D'Youville was able to add seven more points to their lead. Brian Sharp (Newark, NY/Newark) hit a three followed by a Simeon Heard (Rochester, NY/Charles Finney) layup to extend the Spartan's lead to 44-18 with just over five minutes remaining. Sharp then drilled another three to push the lead even higher over the Panthers. From the 9:12 mark to 1:52 remaining in the half, the Spartans limited the Panthers to just five points. D'Youville would close out the half with continued dominance, leading the Panthers 54-28 at halftime.

It was a different story for the Spartan offense to begin the second half as they failed to score until the 15:36 mark of the half. Despite failing to score for nearly a quarter of the half, a Brian Nwaekeke (Corona, CA/John F. Kennedy) three kept D'Youville up by 19. With Nwakeke's three, the offense sparked back up as they took a 25-point lead on a Jake Socha (Tonawanda, NY/Niagara Catholic) jumper with just under seven minutes off the clock. Bradford would get the deficit under 20 twice, but the Spartans would answer each time.

Two Wanya Bruce (Rochester, NY/Fairport) free throws made it a 28-point game with 7:13 to go in the game, putting the lead even further out of reach for Pitt.-Bradford. Down the stretch, Bryce Little (Arcade, NY/Pioneer) and Tyreke Mims (Churchville, NY/Churchville-Chili) hit threes to make the score 96-71. With 0:58 left in the game, William Anderson (Hamburg, NY/Frontier) sank a pair of free throws to put triple-digits on the board for D'Youville. Little added two layups to emphatically seal the game for the Spartans as they won the game 104-79.

"We played a very smart game today," said head coach Earl Schunk "We knew that Bradford played fast and could get points in a hurry, so we wanted to get an early jump on them. We also wanted to take advantage of our post players early and we did a great job of that."

The Spartans had a very balanced scoring attack Monday evening. Nwakeke led the team with 23 points and 13 rebounds, adding five assists. Juan Miguel Rosales (Guatemala City, Guatemala/Village School) added 12 points and 10 rebounds as well, with Socha scoring 17 points off the bench. Darrius Hartzog (Rochester, NY/Wilson Magnet) led the team with six assists in the game with as Devon Camel (Cheektowaga, NY/Cheektowaga) scored seven points in his second consecutive start.

Steve Kunelius (Oswego, NY/Oswego) hit a pair of threes for six points with Sharp also hitting two threes. The men shot an incredible 56.7% from the field and 44.8% behind the arc.

This Wednesday, January 10, the men will host the Alfred State Pioneers at 6:00pm in the College Center Gym for a non-conference battle. Earlier this season, the Spartans defeated Alfred State 114-105 in a double overtime thriller.