NEW HAVEN, Conn. (12/3/22) – The Franklin Pierce men's basketball team found themselves fighting from behind from the opening tipoff to the final buzzer, falling to the NE10 host University of New Haven by a final score of 67-59 Saturday evening.

The road setback drops the Ravens to 4-3 (2-2 NE10) on the season, as the Chargers move to 4-2 (4-1 NE10) with the win. Franklin Pierce has now lost two of its past three contests.

Neither team enjoyed good starts to the game, as the first basket would not be scored until the 17:52 mark of the half. However, over the course of the first seven minutes, New Haven would slowly climb ahead 9-2 while Pierce struggled from the floor, shooting 2-of-12 with two turnovers. At 6:43, the Ravens were able to secure their only scoring run of the entire half, beginning with a made jump shot from sophomore Sean Trumper (Ashford, United Kingdom), which was then followed by an Antonio Chandler (Piscataway, N.J.) dunk. The sputtering offensive half for Pierce would send them into the locker room trailing 28-19 at the intermission.

Both teams returned out of the break hungry for more, as each played to a 5-all score in the first two minutes, with all five Raven points coming from Sean Trumper. The Raven sophomore would continue onward to score the Ravens first nine points in the half, before Jarnel Snow-Guzman (Lynn, Mass.) broke the streak with a jump-shot at 13:58. At 8:53 of the second half, sophomore guard Mohamad Traore (Hyde Park, Mass.) opened the Ravens' largest scoring stretch of the evening, knocking down a three-pointer to start an 11-0 run to bring them back within four points of the Chargers, trailing 49-45. Senior Brandon Kolek (Cumberland, R.I.) and graduate Shandon Brown (Boston, Mass.) would combine shortly after for six unanswered points, tying the contest up at 54-54 with 3:10 to play.

In the end, the good fortunes of the second half would not last for Pierce, as New Haven finished the job with a 13-2 scoring run to claim the victory.

Sean Trumper collected a new career-best 20 points from the floor, shooting on 6-of-13 with a pair of rebounds in 28 minutes played. Defensively, junior forward Sean Bresnan (Yonkers, N.Y.) collected 11 rebounds off the board, including 8 defensive, while also stealing the ball three total times.

Men's basketball returns to NE10 play on Wednesday, December 7^th when the Play host to Saint Michael's College for a 5:30 tipoff.