St. Francis falls to top seed Maine South

Maine South showed why it is the top seed at the Jack Tosh Holiday Classic.

The Hawks (9-1) beat St. Francis 65-53 Saturday afternoon at York, shooting 27 of 45 from the floor as they utilized their height advantage, getting easy looks with great interior passing.

"I like playing in this tournament because you get to see all kinds of teams," Maine South coach Tony Lavorato Jr. said. "After this tournament you get to learn so much more about your team and see where you really stand. We are a veteran crew and played well when we needed to today."

Even though the Hawks won by double digits, the Spartans were able to put a little scare in them late in the third quarter. Trailing by 17 points, Jack Spangler nearly shot St. Francis (3-6) back into the game.

In six possessions Spangler hit four 3-pointers and cut the lead 43-39. Spangler came off the bench to hit six 3s and score a team-high 18 points.

"I wasn't really happy with how we played on the defensive side of the ball," St. Francis coach Sean Healy said. "We allowed them to get some pretty easy baskets and we scored what we normally do. When you give up points like that it hurts, especially when some of the baskets were easy."

Lavorato was not pleased with watching that lead disappear as well.

"You get kind of uneasy about a lead going from 17 down to 4 pretty quickly," he said. "I wasn't very happy when that happened, but we were able to stay poised."

Maine South was led in scoring by Justin Tworek with 18 points and Matt Palucki chipped in with 15 points in the win.

"We are trying to make a name for ourselves," Tworek said. "We are trying to get out of the football team's shadow."