There will be more than just neighborhood bragging rights on the line this Wednesday, January 24, when the Keystone College men's basketball team hosts Marywood University in Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC) action at 8:00 p.m. in the Gambal Athletic Center in LaPlume.
Both teams find themselves battling for a berth in the CSAC play-offs, which begin with quarterfinal action on Monday, February 19, and conclude with the championship game on Saturday, February 24.
Marywood, now 10-7 overall and 5-6 in league play, is in seventh place, 1/2 game behind Immaculata University for the sixth and final play-off spot and only a game and a half behind Keystone for fifth place.
The Pacers have won the last three meetings against the Giants, including a stunning 81-79 victory on January 9 at the Insalaco Arena in Scranton. Marywood fell behind by 22 points at halftime, before shooting nearly 60 percent from the field in the second half to pull out the victory. In that game, senior guard Thomas Swartz capped off a brilliant 29-point performance by hitting the game-winning jump shot with seven seconds remaining.
That performance has also raised his confidence level, as evident by his recent scoring outbursts of 33 points against Cabrini last Friday evening and 30 points against Cairn Monday.   Junior forward Jeremy Ringland is also putting up eye-opening numbers, having dropped 25 points on Cabrini and 15 on Cairn. He also finished with 12 points, nine rebounds, six assists, four blocks, and two steals against Keystone in the first match-up.
Despite dropping a 96-77 decision to league-leader Gwynedd-Mercy at home Monday, Keystone is still just a game and a half out of third place behind Rosemont and Neumann. The Giants can make up that distance with a win Wednesday over Marywood and earn the tiebreaker with Neumann if they can beat Neumann on the road Saturday. Keystone defeated the Knights, 91-80, on December 2 behind a 22-point effort from junior guard
JT Bennett (Kansas City, Kan./Washington). The Giants shot nearly 61 percent from the field in the second half to overcome a two-point halftime deficit.
Keystone, now 7-9 overall and 6-4 in the CSAC, will also have junior guard
Mark Perry (Harrisburg, Pa./Steelton Highspire) in the lineup, which it didn't have for the first meeting against the Pacers. Since transferring from Millersville University, Perry has been unstoppable, averaging nearly 19 points a game while shooting 68 percent from the field and pulling down nearly nine rebounds each time out.
Following Wednesday's contest, the Giants will have seven CSAC games remaining.
