Croone, Paladins fall to Liberty

LYNCHBURG, Va. - A year ago, Stephen Croone had one of his finest nights as a collegiate as Furman defeated Liberty. In the rematch Monday, Croone and his teammates struggled and his counterpart in the back court instead set a new career high.

Joe Retic handed out a career-best 10 assists and Liberty pulled away in the second half of a 66-52 victory at the Vines Center.

Croone, a junior guard from Newton High School, had scorched the Flames for a career-high 40 points last December, but this year’s edition was a different story. Croone still paced the Paladins (1-4) in scoring with 13 points, exactly his team-leading average coming into the game, but he hit just 3-of-11 shots from the field.

The visitors from Greenville, South Carolina hit only 33 percent of their shots with a lot of those struggles coming over the final 20 minutes (9-for-32). There were nine lead changes during an eight-minute stretch in the second half, including after Croone’s steal and difficult lay up - one of just nine team field goals in the second half - though it turned into a three-point play and gave the Paladins a 41-39 lead at the 11:46 mark.

It was tied at 43-43 before Retic assisted on Peter Moller’s three that put Liberty (3-4) up for good at 46-43. Furman closed to within 48-45 on Kendrec Ferrara’s lay up with five and a half minutes to go, but Retic, who scored a career-high 16 points in last December’s loss, had his only four points on a pair of lay ups and added two more assists during a 12-2 Flames’ run and it was 60-47 with a little under two minutes left.

David Andoh came off the bench for Liberty and led all scorers with 14 points.

Croone was held to just three first-half points, but he assisted on Geoff Beans’ 3-pointer to cap a 9-0 run and put the Paladins up 14-10 at the 11:19 mark.

Beans, who was suspended for the first four games of his freshman season for violating team rules, made his debut Monday and hit the first three attempts from behind the arc, though he missed his final seven shots.

After a pair of Liberty buckets, one a nice running hook shot in the lane by Theo Johnson, tied the game at 14-14, Furman followed with a 7-0 spurt. Croone capped the run with a steal and a dunk for his first points of the night with just under nine minutes left until halftime.

Croone, who added eight rebounds and four steals, hit 1-of-2 free throws with about three minutes left to make it 27-20, but Furman didn’t score the rest of the half. A.C. Reid and Tomasz Gielo hit consecutive threes and the host Flames went into the halftime locker room down just 27-26.

John Davis hit a 3-pointer, which turned out to be the freshman guard’s only long ball in six attempts, and Furman had its last lead of more than one possession at 30-26 at the 19:44 mark of the second half. Furman started 5-of-8 from three, but closed the game by missing 20 of its final 23 attempts from behind the arc.

Story