Garden City, N.Y.- The Adelphi Men’s basketball team pulled off a spectacular overtime win (87-82) against the College of St. Rose at home to bring them to 18-7 on the season and bump up their win streak to 4 games.
The Panthers have had some difficulties against the College of St. Rose in the past decade with an overall 9-14 record. This year Adelphi is looking to be much stronger than the now 2-15, St. Rose Golden Knights, now defeating them twice on the season.
Phenomenal performances by one of the NE10’s top scorers, Adelphi’s own Ronnie Silva, putting up 28 points with a second half point total of 18 points and Spencer Foley continuing his hot streak from last game leading the team in scoring with a total of 30 points and a perfect 10-10 shooting free throws. They had also both combined for 50 percent shooting, 10-20, on 3 pointers.
This game was a back and forth, closely-contested game with 12 lead changes throughout. Adelphi had some difficulties throughout this game, starting off with a 9-2 deficit early on. Later on, more difficulties had arisen when Sekou Sylla continued his scoring tear from the first half into the second half. Sylla had a total of 23 points also tying with Josh McGettigan who also scored 23 points as well.
The Panthers finally got it together and were up 62-54 after a ground-breaking dunk by Tim Delaney with 7 minutes left in the second half. Every time Adelphi seemed to have the game locked up, St. Rose managed to comeback. Two 3-point attempts were missed by Adelphi in the closing seconds of the second half which allowed St. Rose to have another opportunity in overtime with a tie score of 71-71. McGettigan was trying to hold his team together with 9 points in overtime when Sylla was held to 0 points in overtime. After St. Rose started off quick with 4 points in OT, Adelphi managed to comeback with Silva and Williams both hitting 3 pointers and then Foley securing the game with a clutch 6-6 free throws.
Adelphi’s Coach Duke knew the talent in Sylla leading up to the game, acknowledging him as one of the league’s finest players. Sylla the second leading per game scorer in the league, averaging 22.5 points, was going to be a problem for Adelphi to overcome if they wanted to secure this win.
When asked about the Panther’s defensive strategy going into overtime, Coach Duke said, “Our main focus was to slow down number 3 (Sylla), he’s awesome, by doing that we tried to keep him away from his left hand, and we were also trying to not allow number 2 (Adam Anderson) to get off any 3-point shots.” The Panther’s came up big with the win following Coach Duke’s game plan. Adelphi kept Anderson in check with 14 points going 1-5 on 3-point attempts and Sylla was slowed down in overtime and throughout the game with 7 total turnovers, even without Adelphi’s Tim Delaney due to a late foul-out in the second half. Delaney was filling up the stat sheet with a monstrous 5 offensive rebounds, 5 defensive rebounds, 6 points and 3 blocks until he hit his 5thpersonal foul which led to Duke putting in Dwaine Williams. Coach Duke acknowledged defense was tougher without their tallest player Tim Delaney, who was on the bench for the late second half and the overtime period. However, Adelphi’s resilience and “play hard” mentality instilled by Coach Duke allowed them to stay strong and secure their 18thwin.
Adelphi needs to limit turnovers and continue their dominant 3-point shooting in future games if they want to continue on their win streak. Adelphi will be playing in their home court this Wednesday the 19thagainst Pace University at 7:30pm. With only a few games left on the season Adelphi is in a great spot this year to make a run in the playoffs.
Michael's Sports Blog 
NOTES
-In the lead (which is solid, by the way), I wouldn’t say “spectacular” but maybe instead use a word with less opinion. Something like “rousing.” Also watch your style on digits under 10, should be the word “four.” Also, their record should be in the second paragraph. Also, “at home” should be the name of the arena. Also the score doesn’t need to be in parentheses.
-I would flip the second and third paragraphs. Also, NE10 – what is that conference? On first reference, should spell it out.
-When you’re referring to shooting, make sure your style on stats is clean. “10 of 10 shooting” or “10-for-10 from the line.” Good job with “percent”
-Good mention of lead changes.
-should be written this way – “a back-and-forth, closely-contested game”
-Style here would have been to just use his name in parenthesis and you could have omitted the “number 3”, which should be written as No. 3. ““Our main focus was to slow down number 3 (Sylla)”
-Overall, use smaller paragraphs. When starting a new idea or a new point, that’s a general rule for it.
-On second reference, can be Duke, not coach Duke.
-Could have used more quotes, especially from players.
-The last paragraph could be a good lead into the next game, but refining is necessary. Style wise, you could just say Feb. 19, not Wednesday the 19th. Also, what is their current playoff position and seed?
-Make sure to watch tenses – this should be written using past tense, not present, since you’re writing about a game that happened. You flip back and forth a bunch.
GRADE: 82
Overall, a solid first attempt, but need to clean up some of the style points and grammar. I would have done more about the overtime period after the second or third paragraphs since that’s where the most important action was.
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