The Misericordia University men's basketball team defeated the College of Staten Island, 68-64, Wednesday in the squad's season opener.

Jason Kenny led the Cougars with 23 points while collecting nine rebounds, four steals and three assists. The senior surpassed Mike Moeller (1,558) to move into third all-time on Misericordia's scoring leaderboard with 1,567 career points.

Foster Clark and Noah Rivera each recorded a double-double in rebounds and points. Clark grabbed a game-high 15 rebounds and finished second on the team with 13 points. Rivera grabbed 10 boards and tallied 10 points.

Tony Harding contributed with 11 points and six rebounds.

The Cougars went into halftime with a 36-28 lead after a late run in the first half. Trailing 21-18 with 7:00 remaining, Misericordia ended the half on an 18-7 run to help distance themselves from the Dolphins.

Kenny scored nine points during the Cougars run, including a three pointer, which gave the squad a 29-21 lead and forced Staten Island to take a timeout.  
Misericordia came out of the locker room with a similar energy and started the second half on a 15-8 run that put the Cougars up 44-29.

The run was culminated by a beautiful bounce pass from Kenny through traffic, which set up Rivera for an easy two in the paint.  The Dolphins followed up the sequence with their first timeout of the half.

Moments later, Kenny gave the Cougars their biggest lead of the night with a jumper to expand the team's lead to 16 points. However, Staten Island answered back with 10 straight points to pull within single digits.

The Dolphins run was sparked by Christian Taylor, who scored six of the team's 10 points. Taylor ended the game with 31 points, five assists and four rebounds while shooting 13-28 from the field.

With 3:31 remaining, the Dolphins brought the deficit within two points on an Adeola Latunji layup. However, the Cougars never surrendered the lead as Kenny shot 4-4 from the line to ice the game in the final 35 seconds.

Misericordia improved to 1-0 on the season while Staten Island fell to 0-2. The Cougars will be back in action on Friday against Penn State Abington at the Vassar College Tournament.