Oliva and Demery with career bests

Sophomore forward Pierfrancesco Oliva scored a career high 22 points and senior forward James Demery matched his season high with 25 as they led the St. Joe’s men’s basketball team to victory over the Fordham Rams 68-46 on Jan. 20. The Hawks (9-9) won their fifth straight game at Hagan Arena and are now 4-3 in Atlantic 10 conference play.

Oliva and Demery accounted for 47 of the Hawks’ 68 points, and snatched 15 rebounds collectively bringing the Hawks to 6-1 at home.

“I was pretty confident”, Oliva Said. A lot of people are asking me if I changed anything. I don’t think I did. I just took advantage of opportunities.”

Fordham led for the majority of the first half, until a three pointer by freshman forward Taylor Funk at the 1:59 mark brought the score to 26-25. The Hawks led 28-27 at halftime, despite shooting only 32 percent.

“They were giving us a hard time with jump defences,” Oliva said. We had to get used to that for the second half. We ran the offence in a different we have before. Eventually we figured out how to attack them and be aggressive.”

The Hawks pulled away within the first 10 minutes of the second half and never looked back, going on a 17-6 run en route to victory.

The most pivotal aspect to the Hawks’ victory was their handling of the ball, as they finished with only seven turnovers. The Hawks presently rank third in the nation in the fewest amount of turnovers per game.

“The big number was going to be turnovers, and to come out of that with seven, and really a handful of those were avoidable,” head coach Phil Martelli said. Although the game was highlighted by offensive efficiency, especially from Oliva and Demery, most emphasis of the game was focused upon defense.

The Hawks kept Fordham to 19 points in the second half. Fordham finished with a total of 20 turnovers.

“I was really impressed with the defense in the second half, the rebounding in the second half, and staying the course,” Martelli said. “A lot of that first half was on me. We had a poor practice yesterday and I should have grinded on them a little bit more than that.”

Both Joseph Chartouny and Prokop Slanina were the leading scorers for Fordham with 11 each, while their leading scorer, Will Tavares, was held to just three points.

The Hawks have now won their last two games as they are well into conference play. Their next game is Jan. 24 at St. Bonaventure. This is the second matchup between the two as the Hawks defeated them at Hagan Arena on Jan. 6. Fans can catch the game on CBS Sports Network at 7 p.m.

St. Joe’s returns to Philadelphia to play University of Pennsylvania at the Palestra on Jan. 27 at 7 p.m.