Rider almost snapped its losing streak with a remarkable comeback.<\/p>\n
Instead, the Broncs returned home to Lawrenceville with an 11th straight defeat after Fairfield hung on for a 68-62 victory on Friday night at Leo D. Mahoney Arena in Fairfield, Conn.<\/p>\n
Rider (1-13, 0-5) remained winless against Division I opposition even though it has been competitive in three of its five MAAC contests. It has led at the under-four media timeout in the second half in three of those games.<\/p>\n
Behind a career-high 27 points from Flash Burton, the Broncs erased a 14-point second-half deficit to go ahead 59-58 \u2014 their only lead in the game \u2014 with 4:10 remaining when Burton connected on a lefty push shot with a defender draped all over him.<\/p>\n
The Stags (10-7, 2-4) responded with the game\u2019s next eight points and Rider went cold offensively. Burton\u2019s three free throws with 21 seconds left were its only points the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
Fairfield finished with a +20 edge in second-chance points (23-3) and hauled down 17 offensive rebounds. The Broncs have conceded 35 offensive caroms in the last two games.<\/p>\n
Rider\u2019s 3-point shooting woes continued with a 4-of-16 night \u2014 all four of those makes were in the second half after an 0-for-7 opening 20 minutes \u2014 and it missed eight free throws.<\/p>\n
Braden Sparks led the Stags with 23 points, while Declan Wucherpfennis (17 points, 11 rebounds) and Brandon Benjamin (10 points, 13 rebounds) both collected double-doubles. Sparks hit his fifth 3-pointer with 1:59 left for a 65-59 lead after an offensive board extended a Fairfield possession.<\/p>\n
Zion Cruz tallied 15 of his 19 points in the second half to aid Rider in its comeback attempt.<\/p>\n
The Broncs host Marist \u2014 a 76-72 winner over Sacred Heart on Friday night \u2014 on Sunday at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rider almost snapped its losing streak with a remarkable comeback. Instead, the Broncs returned home to Lawrenceville with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,325,29863,231,772,1544,9130,66,28060],"class_list":{"0":"post-526868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-college-sports","11":"tag-mercer-county","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-basketball","14":"tag-ncaab","15":"tag-new-jersey","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-top-stories-trt"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115870579155446677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}