It was a very emotional night in Glassboro as Rowan and Kean battled for the last game of the regular season. Fans were treated to a spirited win on Senior Night as Rowan got the better of Kean, winning 87-78 with a strong lead throughout the game.

Four Profs scored in double-digits to secure the win for Rowan. Scoring was led by Austin Kearney with 22, followed by Jerry Price with 13, along with 12 point performances by both Diante Bah, and Maliq Sanders. 

Rowan got out to a large lead early on in the game, and with 10 minutes left to go in the first half, the Brown and Gold went on a 23-14 run to close out the half with a 46-28 lead. 

The game was characterized by great defense along with rough and gritty play that resulted in plenty of foul calls for both teams. Rowan shot 20-26 from the free throw line, which was key in maintaining their lead throughout the game. 

Jerry Price talked about why they matched up against Kean so well.

“We shoot a lot of threes, their philosophy on defense is to pack the lanes, and to make teams take contested shots, or open threes, which falls right into our playstyle because we shoot a lot of threes,” Price said. 

Head Coach Joe Crispin liked the Brown and Gold’s defense, but knows there’s work to be done.

“I thought we were good defensively, but I thought we were bad finishing our defensive possessions,” Crispin said. “[Kean] had too many offensive rebounds, which I count as defense, and one of our areas was limiting offensive rebounds and limiting turnovers which we didn’t do a good job of.”

The numbers back this up with Rowan giving up 18 second chance points, and they were out rebounded by Kean 47-40.

But at the end of the day, Rowan’s offense was just too powerful for Kean to keep up with; Rowan was able to string along huge scoring runs to give themselves space and were able to maintain it all the way to their victory.

Rowan finishes the regular season with a record of 14-11 and will travel to Mahwah, New Jersey to face Ramapo College in the First Round of the NJAC Tournament on Saturday.

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