CENTER VALLEY (PA) – Despite suffering an 84-71 loss at Freedom Conference foe DeSales University, rookie head coach Casey Stitzel and the Delaware Valley College men's basketball team have wrapped up their first conference playoff berth since 1969.

The loss dropped the Aggies to 11-12 overall and 7-8 in the league. However, the rest of the Freedom scoreboard went Delaware Valley's way as Alvernia University suffered an 81-75 loss at FDU-Florham and Wilkes University squeaked out a 62-57 win at Misericordia University. That sealed the fifth seed for Delaware Valley, the end of a 40-year playoff drought and another chapter in the amazing turnaround of the program.

Stitzel was hired last March after the Aggies went 3-22 overall and 0-14 in conference play. He quickly revamped the roster with seven new players and its 11-man lineup features one senior, two juniors (one transfer), three sophomores (one transfer) and five freshmen. The unit got on a roll late in the year with wins in seven of its last nine games, including a 5-2 mark in Freedom contests.

And now their season will extend into the last week of February. The Aggies still have two regular-season games remaining with home contests against Penn State-Harrisburg (Thursday) and Misericordia (Saturday). They will then travel to the fourth seed, which is still to be determined between Eastern and Wilkes, on Monday, February 23 for the opening round of the Freedom Conference playoffs.

“It's an unbelievable accomplishment with a lot of new guys and such a young team,” Stitzel said. “This group has worked so hard and to make the playoffs for the first time in 40 years is something else.”

In Tuesday's game, DeSales (19-5, 11-4) jumped out to a quick, 11-4 lead in the opening four minutes. Delaware Valley battled back and tied the game at 22-22 as Jon Evans drained a 3-pointer with 7:09 remaining in the half. However, the Bulldogs scored 10 straight, including six by Ed Lapinski, and they eventually took a 36-26 advantage at the break.

DeSales extended its lead thanks to an 11-4 spurt to start the second half. The Aggies followed with eight of the next 10 – six by Jason Seipt – to cut their deficit to 49-38 with 14:35 to go. DeSales responded with seven straight and went ahead by as many as 18, 67-49 with 7:59 to go.

Delaware Valley made one final run as Evans scored five and James Jones added four for a 9-0 run and a 67-58 score with 6:43 remaining. However, Darnell Braswell and Jim Malastesta had back-to-back buckets for the Bulldogs and the Aggies couldn't get back to within nine again until the final 65 seconds of the contest.

Braswell paced DeSales with 22 points and 13 rebounds. Lapinski added 19 points and nine boards while Brian Hunter and Malatesta chipped in 13 and 11 points respectively.

Jones had 14 points for Delaware Valley. Evans came off the bench to finish with 13 points while Chris Mayo and Mike Williams scored 12 points apiece. Seipt finished with 10 points and seven assists in the loss.