January 9, 2020 – A put-back by Luka Filipovic with 19 minutes to play gave the Saints men’s basketball team a 36-35 lead and they never looked back on the way to a 71-56 win over Daytona State College Wednesday night in Daytona.
“This is a great win for our team,” said SF head coach Chris Mowry. “Daytona is a big, strong, athletic, talented team. I’m very proud of our effort and toughness tonight. I was unsure how we would respond after the tough loss Saturday to CF, but we came out ready to compete.”
The Saints trailed by three at halftime but turned up the intensity on both ends of the floor in the second half to even their Mid-Florida Conference record at 1-1.
“We really did a good job on the defensive end of the floor tonight,” said Mowry. “Offensively we made enough shots and got several transition baskets in the second half to stretch the lead out.”
Nikola Jerotic led all scorers with 17 points for SF while Ryan Leonard scored 14, Filipovic and Yaw Obeng-Mensah had 13 apiece.
“Individually, Luka had his best game of the year,” said Mowry. “Nikola was super, and Yaw really made some tough shots. Ryan was great off the bench.”
The Saints (8-9, 1-1 MFC) will travel to Lake City on Friday to take on Florida Gateway College before returning home to host Eastern Florida State at SF gymnasium at 7:30 pm next Wednesday.
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