La Plume, Pa. – With Saturday afternoon's Colonial States Athletic Conference men's basketball game against visiting Keystone College tied at 65-65, Gwynedd Mercy University outscored the Giants 23-9 over the final 5:10 to pull away with an 88-74 victory.  The Griffins improve to 10-2 overall and 4-1 in conference play while dropping the Giants to 4-8 on the season and 1-5 in the CSAC.
 
Gwynedd Mercy built a 15-10 lead over the opening six and a half minutes of Saturday afternoon's contest and led by as many as eight points before Keystone pulled to within four at 26-22 at the 7:21 mark on a layup by Mark Gilliam (Philadelphia, Pa./High School of the Future).  The Griffins used a 9-2 spurt to build an 11-point advantage five minutes before the break, but the Giants scored the final five points of the stanza to cut the hosts to 37-31 at halftime.
 
Cedric Elleby paced all players with 14 points and 10 rebounds in the first half while Arron Goodman tallied eight points for Gwynedd Mercy.  The Griffins shot 48.3 percent from the field in the first half while going 1-8 from three-point range and 8-10 from the free throw line.
 
Perry Belcher (Orlando, Fla./Colonial) led Keystone with eight first half points while Gilliam netted seven points.  ShaShawn Drayton (Monticello, N.Y./Monticello) grabbed four rebounds for the Giants, who connected on 37.8 percent of its attempts from the floor in the opening 20 minutes of play including a 3-15 showing from beyond the arc.
 
Gwynedd Mercy opened up a 10-point advantage early in the second half before Keystone used a 9-2 surge to pull to within three at 50-47 with 12 minutes remaining in regulation after Bryan Williams (Los Angeles, Calif./Rialto) scored on a layup.  The Griffins restored a six-point edge before Deion Monroe (Kingston, N.Y./Kingston ) scored seven straight points to give the Giants a 62-61 edge with 6:41 showing on the clock.
 
Gwynedd Mercy countered with the next four points of the game, but a Monroe trey knotted the game back up at 65-apiece with 5:25 left.  The Griffins went back to the point for good with the game's next six points and outscored Keystone 23-9 the rest of the way to close out the victory.
 
Goodman finished with a game-high 28 points for Gwynedd Mercy while Elleby added 23 points and a game-best 14 rebounds.  Rip Engel had 13 points and seven assists while Courtney Cubbage also had a double-double with 11 points and 10 boards for the Griffins, who shot 46.9 percent from the floor, 22.2 percent from three-point range, and 80 percent from the stripe.
 
Monroe led Keystone with 16 points while John Kirkpatrick (Philadelphia, Pa./Northeast) tallied 13 points.  Belcher added 11 points for the Giants, who connected on 40.5 percent of their field goal attempts on the day while going 25 percent from long distance and 6-13 from the line.  Belcher and Drayton powered the visitors on the glass with six boards apiece with Drayton blocking a pair of shots.  Ray Mills (Philadelphia, Pa./Oakbrook) collected team-highs of five assists and three steals while Devin Stricklin (Midland, Tex./Pro Vision Prep) dished out four helpers in the loss. 
 
Keystone forced Gwynedd Mercy into 19 turnovers while giving the ball away just 12 times as a team while the Griffins held a 54-31 advantage in rebounding for the game.
 
The Giants will visit Cairn University on Wednesday evening for a CSAC tilt starting at 8:00 p.m. in Langhorne, Pennsylvania.