DOYLESTOWN (Pa.)--- After playing five straight road games to open the season the Delaware Valley men's basketball team took their home court against St. Mary's College, but wound up on the losing end of a tightly contested matchup, 71-66.
After an opening bucket from St. Mary's (3-2), Zoelin Pair got the Aggies (3-3) started on the offensive end with a bang by tip-slamming a missed layup. After a 6-4 lead for DelVal, Justin Savage and Rasheem Dearry each knocked down triples with a St. Mary's layup sandwiched between to give the Aggies a six point cushion.
After a 6-0 Seahawk run tied it up at 12-12, the Aggies put together a 7-1 burst to grow their lead to 19-13. A Dearry three pointer midway through the first half gave the Aggies their largest lead at 26-1.
With DelVal holding a 27-19 advantage, St. Mary's rattled off the next ten points to go ahead 29-27 with 7:10 left in the half. Neither team would hold a two possession lead for the remainder of the half, as the Aggies led 38-37 at the break.
After the team's traded the lead four times over the first 5:30 of the second stanza, the score sat tied at 43 apiece before Dearry connected on one of his three triples of the game to put DelVal back in front and Casey Caruso followed with a trey of his own to lead 49-43 with 12:15 left.
After the Seahawks cut the deficit to 53-50 with 9:01 left, the Aggies led by no more than one possession for the next three minutes. Daryn Alexander evened the scored at 59-59 before Gary Grant put St. Mary's ahead 62-59 with an and-one layup with 5:02 remaining. The Aggies quickly took the lead right back with four straight points off a layup by Caruso and a pair of free throws by Pair with 3:33 left.
An Alexander bucket for the visitors put them back in front 64-63 with 3:11 to play and never surrendered the lead. Over the final 2:01, the Seahawks shot 5-of-8 from the free throw line while the Aggies shot 0-for-5.
St. Mary's shot 67.7% (21-for-31) from the charity stripe while the Aggies went 10-for-23 for 43.5%.
DelVal had a balanced scoring attack with five players finishing in double figures. Rasheem Dearry led the way with 13 points while Zoelin Pair had 12. Justin Savage and Casey Caruso had 11 while Godly Marc chipped in 10.
Pair finished with 14 rebounds, the third time this season registering double digit boards.
DelVal will return to action on Wednesday, November 30th for their MAC Freedom opener on their home court against Stevens at 6 p.m.
