SCRANTON \u2014 Elizabethtown College used a strong second half to knock off the University of Scranton men\u2019s basketball team, 79-72, in a Landmark Conference game Saturday afternoon at the John Long Center.<\/p>\n
Dallas High School graduate Austin Finarelli scored 24 points to lead Elizabethtown. Zuri Harris added 15 points, Woody Machado chipped in 14 points and E.J. Finney handed out five assists.<\/p>\n
Brendan Carr led four players in double figures for the Royals (10-4 league, 17-4 overall) with 16 points. Nick Ruisi and Josias Carbon had 12 points apiece and Jon Spatola recorded a double-double with 10 points and 10 assists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey (Elizabethtown) played really good,\u201d Scranton coach Carl Danzig said. \u201cThey were extremely efficient, capitalized on our mistakes. They\u2019re a good team, a hard guard. They play five guards and they did a good job of getting us moving around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scranton was looking to ride the momentum from its big win Wednesday night when it overcame a 19-point first-half deficit to beat Moravian. The Royals used a 12-2 run midway through the first half to open a 37-26 lead with 5:26 left. Elizabethtown responded with a 13-3 burst to draw within one. Ruisi\u2019s rebound-and-basket with 1.8 seconds left gave the Royals a 42-39 halftime lead.<\/p>\n
But the Blue Jays opened the second half by scoring the first seven points. The teams traded baskets over the next several minutes before a 3-pointer by Scranton\u2019s Luca Baratta tied it at 52 with 14:50 left.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when E-town put together an 18-6 run to take control. Harris did most of the damage, accounting for the final 11 points \u2014 including three consecutive 3-pointers \u2014 to give the Blue Jays a 70-58 lead with 7:38 left.<\/p>\n
Hoping to stage another comeback victory, the Royals closed to within 75-68 and had two chances to cut further into the deficit, but missed 3-pointers. A basket by Finarelli with 1:19 to play all but sealed the victory for the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe missed those two open 3s, and that might have gotten us back into it,\u201d Danzig said. \u201cWe struggled to get the ball inside, which is something that we always try to do. That didn\u2019t help us. We turned the ball over, too, uncharacteristically in the first half. We were up 11, and I think we had three straight turnovers. We had a chance to crack it open a little bit. Again, they played really well.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you just get beat and they beat us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The loss dropped the Royals back into a second-place tie in the Landmark Conference standings with Drew University, which was a 99-69 winner over Juniata College on Saturday. Catholic University, which downed Moravian on Saturday, 97-69, is in first place with a two-game lead. Four games remain in the regular season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll bounce back. We\u2019re in great shape. I love this team,\u201d Danzig said. \u201cWe\u2019ll practice a couple days to get ready for Lycoming (on Wednesday) and try to win another game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson 81, Keystone 73: At Chambersburg, Keystone College lost a United East Conference game to Wilson College.<\/p>\n
P.J. Murphy led the Giants (3-8, 6-17) with 24 points. Kamdyn Ayers added 17 points, Jden Golding contributed 12 points and seven rebounds and Naime Scott netted 10 points off the bench.<\/p>\n
Pratt Institute 74, Marywood 65: At Brooklyn, New York, Marywood University had a late comeback bid fall short in a loss to Pratt Institute in Atlantic East Conference action.<\/p>\n
Pratt led by 16 midway through the second half, but the Pacers chipped away at the deficit and closed to within 66-65 on a 3-pointer by Collin Himmelberg with 2:53 left. However, the Cannoneers scored the final eight points to close out the victory.<\/p>\n
Himmelberg and Andrew Quinn each had 14 points for Marywood (4-6, 11-10). Shilo Bivins added 12 points.<\/p>\n
Harcum 101, Lackawanna 69: At Bryn Mawr, Harcum College pulled away in the second half to defeat Lackawanna College in a NJCAA Region 19 Division I-II crossover game.<\/p>\n
Khalil Kemp led Lackawanna (12-12) with 20 points. Jack Russell added 11 points and Kaleb Ra\u2019lfa had 10 for the Falcons, who only trailed by 10 at halftime, but wound up losing their third straight.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 The Times-Tribune (Scranton, Pa.). Visit thetimes-tribune.com<\/a>. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/a><\/p>\n \n Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.\n <\/p>\n \n Error! There was an error processing your request.\n <\/p>\n Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON \u2014 Elizabethtown College used a strong second half to knock off the University of Scranton men\u2019s basketball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[14500,178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-108642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-men","9":"tag-scranton","10":"tag-scranton-headlines","11":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}