Rochester, Mich. – The Saints men's basketball team was back on the hardwood yesterday (Nov. 5) to take on the St. Francis Cougars of Indiana in a neutral site matchup. AQ suffered a heartbreaking defeat the prior night to the hands of Mount Vernon Nazarene and were looking to get back in the win column. However, history would repeat itself as the Cougars would squeak out a 90-88 thrilling overtime victory against the Saints.

Aquinas moves to 2-2 on the season after the second heartbreaker is as many nights. Saint Francis University improves to 3-0 on the season.

The Saints got out to a hot start after three consecutive three pointers from Devon Boyd, Menalito McGee, and Jared Dugener got the Saints out to a 13-2 lead. The Cougars would immediately respond with a 16-3 run to get themselves right back into the game and take their first lead of the game. The two sides would continue to trade points back-and-forth in an extremely competitive first half. With just a little under three minutes left in the half, the score would be tied 36-36.

Saint Francis would get a fastbreak buck to take a two-point lead, but Gabe Overway would respond with a tip-in to tie the game back up. Andrew Larson would give the Saints a three-point advantage with just 46 seconds remaining in the first half. However, a late bucket from SFU would narrow the deficit to just one point as both sides entered the locker rooms with the score 41-40 in favor of the Saints.

The back-and-forth action would continue on into the second half as neither team held more than a three point lead for much of the second half. Saint Francis held a slim lead until the Saints took the lead back with just over ten minutes to play in regulation.

A pair of free throws from Overway, followed by a layup from McGee extended the Saints lead to 74-69 with just 5:48 left on the clock. However, the Cougars would respond and eventually tie the game again, this time with the score at 77-77 with just 3:49 on the clock.

AQ would take the lead back again, leading 83-79, but SFU would continue to respond to adversity and come back to tie the game at 83 with just over a minute to go. Payton Harley would score a jumper to take a two-point lead with 38 second left on the clock. With the game coming down to the wire, the Cougars would get a foul with just six seconds on the clock. Saint Francis would convert on both free throw attempts to tie the high-scoring affair at 85-85 and send the game to overtime.

In comparison to the first two halves, overtime was very low scoring. The Saints would take a one-point lead just five seconds into overtime thanks to a free throw from Harley. SFU would take the lead back with a layup, giving themselves an 87-86 advantage. A layup from Donovan Brown-Boyd would give AQ the lead back with 47 seconds left on the clock.

However, with just 17 seconds left on the clock, Saint Francis would score a pair of free throws to take a late lead. The Cougars would get the ball back with just two seconds remaining and score one more free throw to extend the lead to 90-88. Overway attempted to tie the game with a layup off the inbound pass, but wasn't able to convert. Free throws would be the difference as the Cougars win the overtime thriller.

The Saints had a higher field goal (50%-45.3%) and three-point percentage (40.9%-20%) than the Cougars. AQ also held a higher free throw percentage (78.6%-77.1%), more rebounds (42-29), assists (22-12), and blocks (5-1). The only category that Saint Francis led in was turnovers, as the Cougars had just five turnovers to AQ's 17. SFU's 17 points off turnovers would be the difference in this game.

Overway and Harley led the team in scoring with 20 points apiece. Overway would also haul in a whopping 17 boards while assisting seven buckets and blocking a shot. In addition to his 20 points, Harley had four rebounds, four assists, and a block.

McGee and Dugener would be the other two Saints to post double-digit scoring. McGee went 2-6 from beyond the arc while also picking up two boards, two assists, and a block. Dugener shot 1-2 from the three-point line and 5-6 from the field while getting four rebounds, three assists, and a steal himself.

Aquinas will conclude its three-game road stand against Lawrence Tech to kick off conference play. That game will be played on Wednesday (Nov. 9) with the tipoff scheduled for 7:30 PM.