By Abbie Steinly, Staff Writer
The Susquehanna men’s basketball team improved their record to 9-13 with a 90-72 win over Drew University on Saturday, Feb. 8 in Madison, New Jersey.
This River Hawks win evened out their record against Drew to 1-1 on the season after a 98-65 loss at home in late January.
Junior guard Seth Callahan scored a career-high 38 points on the day including 23 of them in the first half. This helped the River Hawks head into halftime with a 55-33 lead, after Drew cut it to four with seven and a half minutes left in the first half.
Not only did Callahan have a career high number of points, but he also broke a Susquehanna record with 12 threepointers during the game.
“I had it as a goal in the back of my mind to one day break the record, but it just kind of happened that game,” Callahan said. “I felt good in warm-ups and I came out and hit my first couple of shots, which got me going. All the credit has to go to my teammates; They found me, put me in great positions and had confidence in me.”
Four of those three-pointers were in the span of three minutes during the second half, which helped the team expand their lead over the Rangers, who sit in a first place tie with Moravian College in the Landmark Conference standings.
Junior guard Tyler Hoagland led the team with 13 assists which moved him into seventh place on the career assists list at Susquehanna. The team also combined to have a total of 35 rebounds.
“This was our most complete game of the season. Everyone played well and contributed,” Callahan said.
Freshman guard Bryce Butler and senior center Ryan Traub each scored 14 points and sophomore forward Zach Knecht contributed 10 points to help the River Hawks get the 18 point win over the number one team.
This was the River Hawks’ third win in the past week after defeating Goucher 85-72 and Catholic 75-71. The team had just come off of a fourgame losing streak at the end of January with losses to Drew, Catholic, Moravian and Juniata.
“These last three games we’ve started to show maturity from our past games. We’ve also started to fit into rolls and find an identity for ourselves that has been missing for a lot of the year,” Hoagland said.
In conference standings, the River Hawks are in sixth place with a record of 6-6 and are just one win away from a three-way tie with Catholic and Scranton for fourth place.
On Wednesday evening, the men lost to Scranton on a buzzer-beater shot, 83-82. The River Hawks will take on Elizabethtown on Saturday, Feb. 17 at 2 p.m. in the O.W. Houts gymnasium to close out their season. The Blue Jays currently sit in seventh place in the Landmark Conference standings with a record of 2-10. In their match up with Elizabethtown earlier this season, the River Hawks narrowly defeated them in overtime 82-81 on Jan. 13. The Blue Jays are currently coming off of a 74-72 loss.