Jan. 28, 2010
Final Stats
Another game without Edwin Ubiles, and another stern challenge on the road, led to the same result. The exact same result. Siena defeated scrappy Saint Peter's Thursday in Jersey City, 66-58, the same tally it toppled Manhattan by four days ago in Riverdale. It's a striking reminder of just how consistent, and good, these Saints are, especially when pressed to the limit.
This was an intense, gritty, hard-fought, 40-minute test that Siena again passed with flying colors. Ryan Rossiter scored 21 points and grabbed nine rebounds to make sure the nation's longest win streak extended to 12 games.
Clarence Jackson scored 15 points, including two key free throws. He played a major role in the victory despite missing all four of his 3-pointers, running his drought from distance to 19 straight attempts. In lieu of a long range solution, the nation's assist leader, Ronald Moore, looked inside. Alex Franklin scored nine points and grabbed 10 rebounds in just 27 minutes to compliment Rossiter. O.D. Anosike came off the bench to score six points, including huge back-to-back field goals in the second half.
Moore finished with 10 points and nine assists in engineering his 87th career victory - just two shy of the program record set by all-time leading scorer and assist man Marc Brown `91 who was in attendance Thursday.
The Saints went just 1-10 from 3-point range, but the one was enormous. Sophomore Kyle Griffin pushed the lead to 54-48 with a three from the right wing at the 8:44 mark. Saint Peter's got it back to two, 58-56, but Franklin twisted through the lane and drove home the dagger to make it a two possession game with 36 seconds left.
Wesley Jenkins led Saint Peter's with 13 points. Nick Leon added 12 and Ryan Bacon finished with 11 points and 15 rebounds.
The Peacocks were 7-14 from 3-point range, but Siena scored 20 points off the Peacocks' 19 turnovers to make up for the 3-point disparity.
Siena improved to 11-0 in MAAC play and will have a chance to equal last year's 12-0 start (the best since the league expanded to 10 teams) Saturday in Poughkeepsie.
