ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Slippery Rock University men's basketball team used strong runs at the end of each half to pick up its fourth straight win with a 76-70 victory on the road at Roberts Wesleyan Sunday afternoon.
 
The Rock remained unbeaten in the month of December with their fourth straight win and have now won five of their last six games to improve to 7-4 on the year. Roberts Wesleyan drops to 0-10 with the loss. Sunday's game marked the final non-conference game of the season for SRU, which will return to conference play Dec. 30.
 
Slippery Rock trailed 30-24 with 2:17 to play in the first half before closing the period on a 7-1 run to tie the game at 31-31 at the break.
 
Neither team could separate by more than four points for most of the second half before Slippery Rock put together an 8-2 run to take a 67-61 lead with 1:31 to play. Roberts Wesleyan cut the deficit to two points with 30 seconds left, but Naquil Jones went 4-for-4 at the free throw line and Merdic Green went 2-for-2 at the stripe to close out the win.
 
Green finished with 14 points and five rebounds to lead a balanced scoring attack that featured five players in double figures and all eight players that saw the floor scoring at least three points.
 
Jordan Marrow scored 13 points and Christal Malalu and Jones each finished with 12. Jones added six rebounds, seven assists and two steals. Malalu pulled down six boards and blocked one shot. Khyree Wooten closed out the double-digit scorers with 11 points. He also pulled down six rebounds, handed out three assists, blocked three shots and had three steals in a full 40-minute effort.
 
Amir Maddred added seven points and five rebounds, Vinny Lasley scored four points and grabbed four boards and Guilherme Verardo scored three points and had two assists.
 
Slippery Rock shot 43.9 percent from the field (25-of-57), 45.5 percent from 3-point (10-of-22) and 88.9 percent from the free throw line (16-of-18), marking the best 3-point and free throw shooting efforts of the season. The Rock posted a 34-32 rebounding advantage and have now outrebounded their opponent in all 11 games on the year.
 
Roberts Wesleyan shot 39.0 percent from the field (23-of-59), 26.3 percent from 3-point (5-of-19) and 73.1 percent at the free throw line (19-of-26).
 
The Redhawks were led by Zack Panebianco with a game-high 27 points. Manny Joseph added 13 points and Malik Dare scored 12 points.
 
Slippery Rock will now break for the holidays before returning to action Dec. 30 with a 3 p.m. game at Seton Hill University to close out the 2016 portion of the schedule. The Rock then open up 2017 by traveling to Mercyhurst Jan. 3 and will return home Jan. 6 to face Indiana (Pa.).