STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. ? The Monmouth University men's basketball team used an 28-8 second half run over a nine and a half minute span for a 70-63 comeback win over Wagner Thursday night at the Spiro Sports Center.

The win is Monmouth's (11-13, 6-6 NEC) first road victory in Northeast Conference play this season and its first on the road since November 30 when they defeated Rider by one point.

“The bottom line is we had to play better coming into tonight,” said head coach Dave Calloway. “The big key was when we went down eight, we didn't panic or deviate from what was successful, which was going inside.”

The Hawks were led by Marques Alston's (Neptune, N.J./Neptune) 16 points, while Jhamar Youngblood (Newark, N.J./St. Patrick's) added his first career double-double with 13 points and a career-high 12 rebounds.

Monmouth trailed 47-39 at the 10:55 mark of the game before going on their decisive run. John Bunch (Randallstown, Md./Randallstown) was fouled intentionally by Wagner's James Ulrich at the 6:44 mark of the second half and hit one of two free throws to give Monmouth a 50-49 lead, then Dejan Delic (Serbia, Belgrade-Montenegro) drained a deep right-wing three to boost the MU lead to 53-50 with 6:30 left in the game.

The Hawks pushed their lead to 63-52 following four Mike Shipman (Bronx, N.Y./Middletown) free throws and at the four minute mark and a Bunch lay-in with three minutes left. Shipman then found Coleman on a backdoor cut to boost the MU lead to 67-55 with a minute and a half left.  

The Hawks took an early one-point advantage 8-7 at the 14:54 mark behind four early Youngblood points.

The low-scoring contest continued early as Wagner took a 14-10 lead at the 9:35 mark behind a Joey Mundweiler long-distance three-point field goal.

Monmouth cut the Seahawk lead to a single point at 20-19 at the 4:11 mark following a Delic left-wing three-pointer to beat the shot clock.

A Shipman three-pointer from the top of the key with twenty seconds left in the first half stopped an 8-2 Wagner run, and took the game into halftime with the Seahawks holding a 28-24 advantage.

Youngblood came out of the halftime break with five quick points including a step-back three-pointer from the left wing to tie the game at 31-31 with two minutes gone by in the second half. The Seahawks regained the lead at 39-36 following Mundweiler's fifth three-pointer of the contest at the 14:00 mark of the second half.

Monmouth continued to trail Wagner as the Seahawks extended their lead to 47-41 at the 9:04 mark following consecutive Mark Porter and Matt Vitale three-point field goals. Delic and Whitney Coleman hit consecutive three-point fields and Alston hit a lay-up at cut the Wagner lead to 50-49 at the seven minute mark.

Shipman scored nine of his 12 points in the second half, including shooting 7-of-9 from the foul line down the stretch. He scored nine of the Hawks final 15 points.