Marist men’s basketball dropped its season finale 63-56 to Saint Peter’s in front of a packed home crowd on senior day at McCann Arena. With Fairfield’s loss to Quinnipiac on Sunday, Marist will play the Bobcats as the fifth seed when they open MAAC Tournament play on Saturday.
The afternoon kicked off with Marist’s senior day ceremony. The program honored graduate student guard Rhyjon Blackwell, senior forward Jaden Daughtry, senior guard Elijah Lewis, senior forward Trace Salton and senior guard Jadin Collins-Roberts; he is on track to earn his undergraduate degree in three years. Senior guard Martin Kawa missed the ceremony and the game due to illness.
“I’ve been really blessed the last four or so years with just different groups, but high character groups,” Marist head coach John Dunne said. “Not every season is perfect, there’s always some ups and downs when you’re talking about 30 games and 78 practices…so this group is just a special group and I’ll miss them.”
The Red Foxes led 25-14 around the midpoint of the first half, but Saint Peter’s outpaced them the rest of the way. Marist shot just 26.5% from the field in the second half but remained in the game until the closing minutes before the Peacocks slammed the door. Dunne mentioned fatigue from the season and the emotions of senior night as factors in his team’s struggles down the stretch.
“I just think we probably were pressing,” Dunne said. “It’s your senior night, you want to do so well, it’s [at] home… you just gotta make the shots and when you miss them, you gotta have a short memory, move on to the next play.”
In the opening minutes, the Red Foxes got a couple of 3-pointers from Salton — who made his first appearance on the floor since Feb. 7 — and sophomore forward Parby Kabamba to lead 8-6 at the first timeout.
Following a made 3-pointer by junior guard Jahki Gupton, sophomore guard Justin Menard converted a 3-point play to go ahead by four. Then, Collins-Roberts picked up his third offensive rebound in the opening seven minutes and found his way to the bucket for a pair before Menard drilled a triple to cap an 8-0 run.
Marist fans packed McCann Arena for the season finale, and the energy was evident on and off the court. Following an assist on a Daughtry slam, Menard jawed at Peacocks junior guard Bryce Eaton as he brought the ball back up the court.
After a Kabamba 3-point play, Marist had what turned into their largest lead of the night at 25-14. From that point forward, Saint Peter’s took command.
Eaton and redshirt senior guard Brent Bland each made 3-pointers as part of an 11-2 run that saw Saint Peter’s cut their deficit to two with 3:50 left in the half. Coming out of a Dunne timeout, Menard had a pass intercepted by Bland en route to a game-tying lay-in by redshirt sophomore forward Lucas Scroggins.
Marist maintained a one-point lead at the break, but the Peacocks ended the half on a 16-6 run that continued into the second half. Buckets from senior forward Zaakir Williamson, freshman guard TJ Robinson and Scroggins allowed Saint Peter’s to work around two Menard scores and take a 38-36 lead early in the second period.
The Peacocks’ run continued to build from there.
With Marist in the midst of a three-minute scoring drought, Scroggins rose and hammered home an alley-oop from Eaton to go ahead 44-36 and force another Dunne timeout.
Blackwell converted beneath the basket coming out of the timeout, but the Peacocks continued to maintain an advantage. Menard, who tends to play with a lot of energy, attempted to find Kabamba with a flashy pass in the paint that Saint Peter’s intercepted en route to another alley-oop slam, this time from Gupton, that put the Peacocks back ahead by nine.
“That kid’s got guts, I’m so happy he’s in our program,” Dunne said of Menard, who led Marist with 19 points. “But at times — and he wasn’t the only one — at times [he] tried to do a little too much.”
Marist remained in the game largely because Saint Peter’s offense slowed to a near standstill as well. From the 9:29 mark to the 1:27 mark, the Peacocks scored just four points. But a lay-in from senior guard Elijah Perkins broke that stretch and gave them an important six-point lead late in the game.
With a four-point advantage and just over 30 seconds remaining, the Peacocks turned the ball over on an inbound; Menard picked up the steal, but Blackwell missed a 3-pointer before Collins-Roberts and Daughtry both missed from 2-point land after offensive rebounds to give Saint Peter’s the ball with 21 seconds remaining.
With the regular season over, Marist will now set its sights on the MAAC Tournament and its first-round matchup: Quinnipiac.
“It’s going to be a hard-fought rock fight,” Dunne said. “We’re going to fight, we’re going to scrap…I wouldn’t expect anything less from our group.”
The Red Foxes will tip off against the Bobcats at 6 p.m. on Saturday in the quarterfinal of the MAAC Tournament.
Edited by Sierra Fisher
Photo and Graphic by Xavier Angel
For more coverage of Marist athletics, follow @cfmarist on Instagram, X, TikTok and Bluesky, and sign up to receive daily alerts here.