'DANBURY, CT 1/14/03  –  The Keene State College men's basketball team dropped its first Little East Conference game of the season, 85-80 to Western CT Tuesday at Danbury, CT

The Owls fall to 10-2 and 3-1 in the LEC while WCSU improves to 8-4 and remains undefeated (4-0) in league play.

Alphonse Michalski (Northampton, MA.) led the Owls with career high 22 points.  The junior guard hit nine of 12 shots from the field. He also finished with six assists.  Sean Sullivan (Athol, MA.) with 12 points and Chris Timson (Beverly, MA.) and Matt Wheeler (Shrub Oak, N.Y.) also finished in double figures with 11 points each.

Derek Swenson (Attleboro, MA.), KSC's leading scorer, was held to just seven points.  "I don't think we did a good job of getting him the ball, " said KSC coach Rob Colbert.  "And they did a nice job defensively on him."

The Owls, who trailed 44-35 at the half, were behind 11 points with 3:33 to go before climbing back into the game.  A basket by Michalski cut the lead to four (80-76) with 1:32 to go.  A pair of turnovers by Michalski and a couple of free throws by Kimani Crawford extended the Colonels lead to 82-76 with 23 seconds to play.

KSC got to within four again (83-79) on a drive and free throw by Michalski with four seconds to play before running out of time.

"We got off to a slow start and missed some easy baskets," said Colbert. 

Marvin Evans led WCSU with a game high 25 points.  Many of his baskets were dunks on transition.

"I thought we rebounded the ball well but was disappointed in our transition defense, " Colbert added. "And you can't do just two-thirds of the job against a quality team."

Keene State continues a tough stretch of road game when it plays at UMA-Dartmouth on Saturday.

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