Joe Busacca poured in a season-high 28 points to help the Misericordia University men's basketball team overcome a three-point deficit at halftime to capture a 70-53 victory at Manhattanville on Saturday afternoon.
 
The Cougars shot an outstanding 67% from the field in the second half to outscore the Valiants 43-22 over the final 20 minutes.
 
Erik Kerns just missed a double-double, posting nine points and 13 boards while Jamie Egan and Jesse Urich added eight and seven points, respectively.
 
The Valiants held the momentum for the first 25 minutes of the game, leading by as many as 10 points early in the second half.
 
Busacca started the Cougars' dominance with a layup in transition with 16 minutes left to play.
 
The senior guard added another layup to cut the Valiants' lead to five at the 15 minute mark. However, Anthony Maestre drilled a long-range jumper to extend Manhattanville's lead to 42-34 with 15 minutes left.
 
The next 15 minutes would be all Cougars as Busacca found Kerns in the paint to spark a 9-0 MU run over the next two minutes and cut the Valiants lead to one at 42-41.
 
Busacca then hit a mid-range jumper to give MU it's first lead of the game at 46-44 with 10:18 left to play.
 
Egan and Busacca then caught fire from beyond the arc to give the Cougars an eight-point lead at 52-44 with just under nine minutes to play.
 
Egan, Busacca and Kerns added multiple buckets over the next six minutes while Urich capped MU's big run with a layup with 2:25 left to play.
 
MU's hot shooting put the game out of reach and led to a 70-53 victory.
 
With the win the Cougars improve to 11-4 and 3-1 in the Freedom Conference while the Valiants fell to 5-10 and 1-3 in the conference.

The Cougars return to action, Wednesday night against Freedom rival King's College at 8:00 in the Anderson Center.