MANCHESTER, N.H. (February 16, 2022) -- Junior Isaiah Moore (Temple Hills, Md.) took nearly half as many shots as the entire Saint Anselm team on Wednesday night. He made more than half as many shots as the Hawks did. It was a 14-for-27 performance from the field for Moore, who poured in 30 points to lead the Franklin Pierce University men's basketball team to a 76-65 win on the road, in a pivotal, late-season Northeast-10 Conference contest at Stoutenburgh Gymnasium.

With the win, Franklin Pierce improves to 13-8 (10-6 NE10), while Saint Anselm falls to 13-8 (9-7 NE10).

Moore, who had been held to just 10 points in Monday night's blowout loss to New Haven, started early, with the first two buckets of the game, and nearly singlehandedly made sure Wednesday night's result would be different. Moore contributed 15 points in each half, highlighting a Franklin Pierce attack which hit at 48% from the field (30-for-62).

The Ravens capitalized on an abysmal, 27% effort (9-for-33) from Saint Anselm in the first half to open up a seven-point halftime lead (33-26). The only thing keeping the Hawks in the game at the intermission was that a disproportionate amount of their makes came from three-point range, where they went 5-for-11.

Franklin Pierce needed only hold serve in the second half, and narrowly managed to do so at times. Saint Anselm cut the gap to two (42-40) with 14:36 to play on a layup by senior Alonzo Jackson, but the Ravens answered with a jumper from junior Maxwell Zegarowski (South Hamilton, Mass.) and a triple from junior Brandon Kolek (Cumberland, R.I.) to stretch the lead right back to seven.

Things got even dicier later, when the Hawks ran off 10 straight points to tie the game at 63-63 on a three-point play by senior Chris Paul with 4:46 remaining. The Ravens responded again though, and more forcefully this time, with a Moore jumper, a Zegarowski three, a Moore triple, a three-ball from freshman Mohamed Traore (Hyde Park, Mass.) and, finally, a jumper from Traore, to rattle off 13 straight points and put the game out of reach at 76-63, with just 67 seconds to play. Saint Anselm came up empty with missed shots on each of its four possessions in the run.

The Moore three in the back-breaking stretch was his only long ball of the game, but ran his final scoring total to 30 points, which led all players by a wide margin, and also paced three Ravens in double figures. Zegarowski added 17 on 7-for-13 shooting, while Traore contributed 16 on 6-for-9 from the floor, which included 4-for-6 from distance. Sophomore Sean Bresnan (Yonkers, N.Y.) and freshman Sean Trumper (Ashford, United Kingdom) snagged nine rebounds apiece, to match each other for the game high.

Saint Anselm had four in double digits, led by 20 from junior Tyler Arbuckle on 8-for-18 shooting, but it would not be enough. Junior Owen McGlashan and senior Gustav Suhr-Jessen added 13 apiece, while Paul chipped in 10.

The Ravens will return home on Friday, to host Le Moyne in an NE10 contest at 6 p.m. in the Fieldhouse in Rindge.