Elizabethtown College Men's Basketball
Wednesday, February 21, 2001

ETOWN ADVANCES TO CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP WITH 83-74 WIN OVER ALBRIGHT, BLUE JAYS REACH 20 WIN PLATEAU FOR SECOND TIME IN PROGRAM HISTORY, PARISE ONE ASSIST AWAY FROM TYING PROGRAM RECORD

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. --- Elizabethtown advanced to the championship game of the Commonwealth Conference playoffs and reached a major season milestone with its 83-74 win over Albright Wednesday night.

It was the 20th win of the season for Elizabethtown, and it is only the second time in the history of the program that the Etown men's basketball team has reached 20 wins in a season. The 1963-64 team finished 20-5 and won the old Middle Atlantic Conference championship.

Albright took a 35-32 lead into halftime, but Elizabethtown took a 43-41 lead with 15:24 left to play. Albright regained the lead, 53-52, on a pair of free throws by Mark Moritz with 10:24 to go in the game, but a three pointer by Etown's Chad Heller (New Holland, PA/Garden Spot) at 9:31 gave Etown a 55-53 from which the Blue Jays would never look back.

Ross Unruh (Denver, PA/Cocalico) led Elizabethtown with 22 points, including 18 in the second half. He shot four for five from the perimeter and also led the team with five steals.

Bob Porambo (Bethlehem, PA/Liberty) and Matt Nikoloff (Grove City, PA/Grove City) shared the team lead with six rebounds and scored 15 and 11 points, respectively. Brian Loftus (Doylestown, PA/Central Bucks West) added 11 Blue Jay points, and point guard Rocky Parise (Harrisburg, PA/Bishop McDevitt) dished out seven assists.

Parise now has 148 assists this season, just one shy of tying the program single-season record set in 1989-90 by Matt Duffy.

Moritz led Albright with 15 points, five assists and nine rebounds, as the Lions finish their season 16-8.

Elizabethtown will travel to Widener Saturday to face the first-seeded Pioneers, which defeated Lebanon Valley 85-80 tonight, for the Commonwealth Conference championship and an automatic NCAA tournament bid.

Etown is 1-1 against Widener this season. Game time is 7:30 p.m.

Game box score.