The Daemen Wildcats picked up a huge home win Saturday night and their first against a top 5 team since 2008, when they beat then second ranked Walsh.Davenport (MI) held a 34-26 lead at half while shooting 52% from the floor. The game started off with Davenport racing out to a quick 9-0 lead which lead to a Daemen timeout. The Wildcats were able to creep back into the game and eventually answered with their own run to take a 15-14 lead.
After the Panthers were able to up their lead to 11 early in the second, Daemen used a 10-0 run to creep to within one. With just under ten minutes to go, sophomore guard Mark Coppola tipped in a missed shot to give Daemen it's first lead since 17-16 in the first half. Davenport would be able to score the next six points to regain the edge at 55-51.
The two teams went back and forth for the next posessions until Daemen was able to grab the edge with under a minute to go. They increased their lead to as many as four when senior Dom Mazzochi went 1-2 at the line. Davenport quickly answered with a deep three from JaVonte Ford who was sensational in this game scoring 23 points on 8-10 shooting (4-5 from three) and grabbing 9 rebounds. That would be the last points Davenport would score though as their final two heaves in the final ten seconds were off the mark.
"You got to give all the credit in the world to our players" said Daemen head coach Don Silveri. "We did a good job om emphasizing the importance of getting loose balls and taking charges and our players bought into what we were selling as a staff. Us just being mentally and physically though made a big difference in the game tonight."
Sophomore Casey Sheehan lead the team in scoring as he put in 17 points and added 5 rebounds and 6 assists. He used his quickness in the lane to create for himself and his teammates.
Daemen moves to 6-5 on the year and end their two game losing streak. Daemen will play next Wednesday when they host Fisher College to open up conference play.
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