Box Score JOLIET, Ill. --- Bymnet Tecle tallied a game high 15 points off the bench and Reihana Maxwell-Topia added 14 markers to help the University of St. Francis men's basketball team gain its second series sweep in five days with its 73-52 Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference victory over Holy Cross College at the Sullivan Center on Wednesday night. The Saints (14-11, 10-10 CCAC) captured the initial meeting between the two teams back on Dec. 11, 66-56.

The victory also kept head coach Ryan Marks' club in the No. 6 slot in the league standings with two games to go. The top eight teams make the CCAC Tournament.
After missing their first four shots and turning the ball over three times among their first six possessions, the Saints caught fire making their next five field goal attempts and three straight free throws to open up a 15-4 advantage. It also wiped out Holy Cross' only lead of the contest (2-0).

Both teams struggled to get their offensive games going the rest of the half with Holy Cross (11-16, 6-13) making just eight field goals in 25 attempts (.320) and only one three pointer in seven tries over the first 20 minutes, while the Saints were converting at just a .346 clip (9-of-26).

The second half of the contest was a completely different story for the hosts, where they eventually led by as many as 30 points. A .615 field goal percentage (16-of-26) and nine treys in 17 attempts (.529) sparked the 46-point second half as did Tecle and Maxwell-Topia. Tecle netted 13 of his 15 points after the break, while Maxwell-Topia delivered 11 of his 14 points in the closing 20 minutes.

Joey Buggemi provided better than one third of the offense in the opening half, totaling 10 points to send the Saints to a 27-18 lead at the break. A 16-0 run starting at the 16:31 mark of the second half and extending over the next four minutes put the game out of reach with USF going up 48-26. Maxwell-Topia provided eight of the point in the surge with Buggemi, Darius Wright and Carter Fayhee also contributing.

Holy Cross would never get the deficit below 20 points the rest of the night in a game that saw 15 different Saints get on the court. Buggemi (13 points, 3 steals) was next in line in the Saints scoring column followed by Wright (10).

Lewis Holey and Fayhee accounted for two thirds of the board work with ten rebounds each among USF's 30 total, while Russell Tillery directed the offense to the tune of eight assists.

Mick Sullivan topped the Holy Cross scoring chart with 14 points, while also gaining eight rebounds.

Up Next
The Saints will take full advantage of Saturday's bye date before heading to Davenport, Iowa next Wednesday to face St. Ambrose University. The Fighting Bees currently sit one half game behind USF at 9-10 in league play with three conference games left on their schedule.

Live coverage can be found at gofightingsaints.com/coverage. You can also keep up with all things USF on Twitter @USFSaints.