Marshall's near Triple-Double Leads Wilkes Men's Basketball over King's
WILKES-BARRE –
Drake Marshall (Gainesville, VA/Patriot) finished one rebound short of a triple-double to lead the Wilkes University men's basketball team to an 88-70 victory over Middle Atlantic Conference Freedom (MAC Freedom) rival King's College on Wednesday evening.
The Colonels improved to 2-6 in league play and 4-10 overall with the victory.
Matthew Davidheiser (Reading, PA/Exeter Township) started the scoring with a corner three-pointer to open the game. After a Monarch turnover,
Cayden Merrifield (Scranton, PA/West Scranton) found a streaking
Trent Fisher (Sellersville, PA/Pennridge) for a layup to give Wilkes an early 5-0 lead.
The Colonels found themselves trailing 32-28 with under four minutes left on the first half before finishing the frame with three-pointers from
Nickerson DeMelfi (Newbury Park, CA/Newbury Park), Merrifield, and Marshall along with a Fisher Layup to finish on an 11-2 run, leading 39-34 through the first 20 minutes.
Wilkes started the second half the same as the first ended, hitting a three-pointer to extend the lead to 42-34.
King's cut the deficit to 53-47 with 14:29 on the clock, and from there the Colonels went on a 12-3 run to extend the lead to 65-50 with 10:33 on the clock. The Monarchs then went on a run of their own at 9-0 to slice the lead to 65-59 forcing Wilkes into a full timeout with 7:50 remaining.
From there, the Colonels finished the game on a 23-11 run to secure the victory.
Wilkes was led by Marshall's near triple-double, notching 28 points with 10 assists and nine rebounds. Fisher added 19 points, and eight rebounds,
Sean Coller (Hershey, PA/Hershey) contributed 15 points , three rebounds, and three assists, while Merrifield rounded out the double-digit scorers with 11 points and seven assists.
King's was led by Patrick Bennie's 14 points, while Tyler Faux added 13 points and four rebounds and Eamonn Walsh contributed 10 points off the bench.
The Colonels return to the hardwood on Saturday when they host FDU-Florham for a 3:00 p.m. MAC Freedom contest inside the Marts Center.
