Demery leads with 18, Saint Joseph's beats La Salle 78-70

Mar 3, 2018, 09:43 pm

PHILADELPHIA -- James Demery scored 18 points and led five players in double-figure scoring as Saint Joseph's beat La Salle 78-70 on Saturday in a regular season finale.

Shavar Newkirk added 16 points for the Hawks (15-15, 10-8 Atlantic 10 Conference), Anthony Longpr� had 11 points and Chris Clover and Nick Robinson had 10 apiece, with Robinson grabbing eight rebounds.

The Hawks closed out the regular season on a three-game streak and are currently fourth place in the conference standings.

Saint Joseph's led 39-33 at halftime but La Salle kept pace early in the second half, taking a 48-47 lead with 12:48 to play. The Hawks inched ahead again on back-to-back 3-pointers by Newkirk and Demery and Clover hit a layup, James Demery a dunk and Pierfrancesco Oliva a 3-pointer as part of an 11-6 run late that pushed it to 77-67 with 39 seconds to go.

Pookie Powell scored 26 points with nine rebounds and six assists to lead the Explorers (13-18, 7-10).