The University of Scranton men’s basketball team had won 11 straight games and were ranked in the Division 3 top 25 for the first time since 2018. That was until Wednesday night at Wilkes, when the Colonels pulled off the landmark upset.

The Colonels jumped out to an early 1st half lead and never looked back. Beating the 21st ranked Royals 75-45.

Izzi Metz, Wilkes Coach says, “ I just thought right off the bat we were ready to play. Obviously, tremendous respect for Scranton, who was ranked this week. So, I think that got our guys antenna up, and, we were just excited to give it a good, clean home game tonight, for sure, a conference game. “

Dan Santaniello, Wilkes Sophomore(Scranton Prep) added,”I think it’s kind of our prior results or why we came out so hot today. We’ve seen what a slow start has done to us in the past. So, I think it was kind of critical for us to get off to that hot start and, kind of keep our forward momentum and push through to a good victory. “

The Wilkes win is their 10th on the season. It has been a season of streaks for the team but with the return of leading score Lucas Lesko the Colonels are starting to play more confidently.

Metz says, “ He’s such a big part of our team is, you know, such a dynamic player. Once he got healthy, like that really helped us, you know, gain confidence for sure. “

Lukas Lesko, Wilkes Senior(Northampton) added, “Obviously had an injury earlier in the year. So, coming back, I think we’re finally getting the ball rolling here. It’s weird adjustment wise, you know, they played a few games without me. So, not expecting to be 100% coming into it. I think we’re shown that we kind of know what we’re doing now. What to expect and just going to keep it going. “

Scranton played the game minus two injured starters and dropped their 2nd in the conference.

Before Wednesday game the Royals had completed a remarkable turnaround after winning just 16 total games the last two seasons.

Carl Danzig, Scranton Coach says, “we did a preseason trip in the beginning of the year, and that really helped coming up, bring some things together.

And we got, you know; we brought in new players, recruits and everybody’s kind of just gelling and, you know, and it’s a fun bunch to be around. You hate to be cliche, but they really like each other a lot. And we’ve battled and battled, e played some amazingly tough games. And, you know, at any given point you’d love to win them all right.

But it’s hard to and unfortunately, we took the hit tonight. But I’m really pleased with my group were super young and super inexperienced and they’re we’re doing great things right now. “

Both teams return to action this weekend.