NEWTON, Mass. - January 24, 2019 - Trailing 84-76 with 5:04 to play, the Colby-Sawyer men's basketball team finished the game on a 20-2 run to defeat Lasell, 96-86, in Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) action Thursday evening. 

Colby-Sawyer improves to 10-9 overall and 4-2 in the GNAC. The Chargers will return home to host Rivier next Thursday. Lasell drops to 4-13 overall and 2-3 in the conference. 

Junior Patrick Coffey (Westford, Mass.) led the Chargers with 24 points. He was 8-of-8 from the free throw line. Junior Dana Bean (Franklin, N.H.) finished with 20 points and a game best 15 rebounds. He moved into 8th in career rebounds with 623. Senior Jourdain Bell (Manchester, N.H.) added 19 points and five steals. Sophomore Jake Carrier (Manchester, N.H.) earned the start and scored a career-high 11 points. Sophomore KJ Synvrit (Miami, Fla.) made all seven of his free throws and finished with nine points. 

The conference's second-leading scorer Stefan Masciarelli poured in an impressive season best 45 points on 16-of-32 from the floor and 10-of-19 from beyond the arc. Kevin Nunez registered 18 points and six assists, while Tommy Beauchemin contributed 12 points off the bench. Liam Jacobs rounded out the four Lasers that scored with 11 points. 

Colby-Sawyer had the early lead, pulling out to a 19-8 lead seven minutes in, but the Lasers stayed in the game on the hot-shooting of Masciarelli, who finished with 25 first-half points. The home team battled back to take a 31-30 lead with 4:45 remaining. The game then went back-and-forth for the next couple of minutes, before Masciarelli knocked down thee treys to give the Lasers a 44-40 lead at the break.
 
A three by Masciarelli and a hoop by Nunez to start the second half pushed the margin to nine points (49-40). The Lasers maintained a single-digit lead and held a 69-60 margin midway through the half, and a Masciarelli bucket with five minutes remaining put Lasell up 84-76.
 
The Chargers took over the rest of the way, scoring 14-straight points and shutting down the Lasers for nearly four minutes. Coffey and Bean had five points each in the Charger rally, with Bell and Synvrit adding two each to put Colby-Sawyer ahead 90-84, before Masciarelli stopped the streak with Lasell's last basket with 1:17 remaining. Synvrit and Coffey tacked on a pair of free throws and Bean sealed the win with a dunk with 13 seconds to play.

Colby-Sawyer was 30-of-37 from the free throw line, while Lasell made 9-of-13. 

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