SELINSGROVE – The Wilkes men's basketball team handed Susquehanna University their first conference loss of the season, defeating the River Hawks 87-71 in their Landmark contest Friday night inside the Orlando W. Houts Gymnasium. Cayden Merrifield (Scranton, PA/West Scranton) dropped 35 points in the decisive win.
 
The Colonels advanced to 12-3 on the season while improving to 5-3 in Landmark play. Susquehanna fell to 9-5 overall and picked up their first loss in conference play, now standing at 6-1.
 
Matthew Davidheiser (Reading, PA/Exeter Township) found the scoresheet first for Wilkes, nailing an early trey after the Colonels recovered an offensive rebound. He followed the play up with a drive through the River Hawks' zone, finishing at the basket. With less than three minutes of time expired off the game clock, Davidheiser had already accumulated five points.
 
Susquehanna elected to call a timeout to slow the Colonels' momentum after the visitors jumped out to a 9-2 lead at 15:16 in the first half. Both sides seemed to find an offensive rhythm following the timeout, as they would trade baskets for four consecutive possessions. After the flurry of scoring, Wilkes still held on to a 13-8 lead.
 
Colin Ackerman (Manasquan, NJ/Wall Township) secured the first bench points of the night for Wilkes at 10:56, as the sophomore guard weaved through traffic and delivered and off-balance layup under the hoop to extend the Colonel lead to seven.
 
Following a push by Susquehanna to tie the game up, Wilkes picked up some much-needed insurance points as Trent Fisher (Sellersville, PA/Pennridge) sent a perfectly-placed bounce pass to Joey Zvorsky (New Cumberland, PA/Cedar Cliff) under the hoop. Zvorsky hit shot to grow the lead back to six.
Davidheiser knocked down his second deep ball of the evening with roughly five minutes to go in the first frame. Shortly after the three, Merrifield drained another shot from behind the arc to put Wilkes up 29-22.
 
Merrifield went on to score ten points on four consecutive Colonel possessions, which caused the lead to balloon to 11 with less than a minute to go in the half.
 
After Lucas Lesko (Northampton, PA/Northampton) tacked on a bucket in the last two seconds of the half, Wilkes took a 38-27 lead into the break. Merrifield led all Colonel scorers with 12 points through 20 minutes, while Davidheiser went 2-3 from three-point range. He and Lesko both tallied eight points in the first half. Wilkes shot 53.1 percent from the field and knocked down 25 percent of their three pointers. Meanwhile, Susquehanna outrebounded the Colonels 18-15 and received 21 points off the bench.
 
The River Hawks opened up the second half with a dominant 14-0 run to take their first lead of the night 41-38. Merrifield managed to stop the bleeding by drawing a foul and knocking down both shots from the line to pull Wilkes within one point of Susquehanna.
 
Merrifield continued his hot streak with a wide-open three ball to reclaim the lead 43-41 with roughly five minutes gone in the second half of action.
 
Jack Argento (Hershey, PA/Hershey) made his presence known with a timely trey to build the Wilkes lead back up to seven points. Layups by Fisher and Lesko added to the River Hawk deficit; they now looked to claw back from 11 points behind the Colonels.
 
Following the 14-0 Susquehanna stretch, Wilkes responded with a 34-15 run in which they shot 12-17 from the field and knocked down six three pointers, forcing the River Hawks to take a full timeout. With 6:18 left on the game clock, Wilkes had reached their largest lead of the game up 72-56.
Merrifield kept his stellar three-point shooting percentage alive with his sixth successful shot from beyond the arc to open the lead up to 17 points.
 
Wilkes protected their sizable lead and came out of the contest with an 87-71 victory.
 
Merrifield stole the show with a career-high 35 points, including six three-pointers to officially put the junior at over 100 threes in his career. Merrifield, along with Davidheiser, shot 66.7 percent from deep. Fisher racked up ten assists on the evening, which ties him for the seventh-most assists in a single game in program history. The forward also recorded a game-high three steals. Lesko and Zvorsky shared the team lead in rebounds with six boards each. As a team, the Colonels shot 60.3 percent from the floor and 47.6 from three-point range.
 
The River Hawks saw a 15-point contribution from Marcus Mitchell, who hit a pair of three's in the contest. Brandon Lavitt grabbed a team-high six rebounds for Susquehanna. The team hit half of their shots from the floor, going 29-58 on field goal attempts. They shot 75 percent from the line and hauled in 28 total rebounds.
 
The Colonels continue the road trip with a visit to Moravian University on Wednesday, January 17. Tipoff against the Greyhounds is set for 7:00 p.m.