AMHERST, NY - The Daemen Wildcats secured their fifth consecutive victory tonight by defeating the visiting Roberts Wesleyan Raiders 70-62 before 307 fans at Lumsden Gymnasium tonight.  The win keeps Daemen (16-9), newcomers to the NAIA II National Poll at #25 as of yesterday, on top of the American Mideast Conference standings with an 8-1 mark.  Roberts Wesleyan falls to 7-15, 3-4 with the loss.

"We played well in spurts today," said Daemen head coach Don Silveri.  "We still have to work on being more consistent within the game.  We seem to have these mental lapses from time to time.  All-in-all, it was a good effort and we're happy to be 8-1 in conference."

Daemen jumped out of the gates early behind sophomore forward Kadeem Johnson.  Johnson, who came into the contest shooting 76% from the field in his last seven games, was hot once again for Daemen, going 5-for-5 from the field in the first half, before finishing with 14 points (on 7-for-7 shooting) and 10 rebounds for the first double-double of his career.  Johnson had eight points in the early going as Daemen raced out to an 18-6 lead in the game's first 7:28.

From there, the Raiders hung around, battling to within 10 points on three occasions, including at 33-25 before a leaning bank shot by Daemen's Jim Regan as time expired in the opening frame, pushing the Wildcat edge back to 10.

To open the second half, Daemen used 13-3 run to establish its largest lead of the game, 48-28.  Senior forward Dom Mazzocchi got hot and scored seven points during the spurt which covered the first 3:37 of the half.  

Once again, the Wildcats allowed Roberts Wesleyan to hang around.  From the 16:23 mark, the Raiders actually out-scored Daemen 34-22.  They were able to get the deficit as low as seven points (58-51) with 3:17 to play.  Daemen then scored five straight to get back to a 12-point lead and were never seriously threatened down the stretch.

Mazzocchi canned a game-high 24 points, on 8-for-16 from the field, to go with seven boards.  Regan narrowly missed a double-double with 10 points and nine rebounds.  Sophomore Mark Coppola dished six assists for Daemen as well.

William Kemp-Harris banged four of his five three-point attempts en route to 17 points for the Raiders.  Big man Alif Bland scored all 13 of his points in the second half, after constant Daemen double teams on the low block held him to an 0-for-5 showing in the first half.

Due to the whacky situation with AMC-member Walsh University, who is eligible for the regular season conference championship only (cannot participate in post-season play), Daemen remains one game ahead of the Cavaliers in the loss column, but can for all essential purposes clinch the top seed in the AMC Tournament with a win this Saturday at Wilberforce.