The Berkeley College men's basketball team finalized its regular season on Wednesday evening with a hard-fought 89-78 victory over the Patriots of the University of Valley Forge. With the win, the Knights won their 19th consecutive contest to improve to 19-1 on the 2015-2016 campaign, while the Patriots dipped to 5-18 on the season.
Massiah Merritt – who has been arguably Berkeley's best player since the calendar flipped to 2016, paced the Knights with a fantastic performance – as he connected on 11 of his 15 attempts from the floor to finish with a game-high 32 points. Additionally, he converted on seven of his 10 attempts from the free throw line, while also tallying four steals and blocking a shot.
Stephon Jennings played 28 minutes and fell just short of posting another double-double, as he scored 16 points and snatched nine rebounds while recording a pair of steals, and Keenan Langston drilled nine of 12 attempts from the charity stripe to finish his evening with 15 points and five rebounds. Following the victory, Head Coach Chris Christiansen gave his thoughts.
"This was a very encouraging victory for our group, and I thought it was very key for us to finalize our regular season on a positive note and keep our momentum going heading into the Hudson Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament," Christiansen said. "We've won 19 games in a row now, and our student-athletes are motivated to keep this winning streak alive. Our magic number for the remainder of this season is five. We want to cap this historic season with five more victories and two more championships. We are going to give it our best shot."
The teams almost had identical shooting percentages, with the Knights connecting on 46.7 percent of their shots (28-60), compared to 45.2 percent (28-62) for the University of Valley Forge. Berkeley College forced 18 opposition turnovers while committing just 11 of its own and the Knights tallied 10 steals on the evening compared to six for the Patriots.
Devin Williams led the way for the University of Valley Forge, scoring 26 points to go along with five assists and three rebounds, and Thorne McIntosh added 18 points and five caroms. DeAndre Gadsen scored 17 points in a losing effort, as well.
The Knights will now head into the Hudson Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament on Saturday as the No. 1 seed, and Berkeley will face No. 4 seeded SUNY-ESF. The game takes place at 1:00pm at the College of New Rochelle. Keep it posted to www.berkeleycollegeknights.com to follow Berkeley as it strives for a second consecutive HVIAC title.
