ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. - Catholic men's basketball won its 12th straight contest on Wednesday night, picking up a road win over Elizabethtown by a final score of 75-66. The Cardinals remain atop the Landmark Conference with the victory with five regular season matchups remaining. 

In a tightly contested battle against a scrappy Blue Jay bunch, four Catholic players scored at least 13 points for the Cardinals while Enzo Sechi recorded his third double-double of the season. Tommy Kelly led the Cardinals with 17 points while adding in a game-high four steals as he continues a final stretch push to reach 1,000 points. Brian Herbert just missed a double-double with 16 points and eight rebounds while Jesse Hafemeister added 14 points and three boards. 

The Cardinals were extremely careful with the ball, turning it over just six times on the night while forcing 15 turnovers and scoring 13 points off of those giveaways. 

Catholic never built a lead bigger than four points over the first 15-plus minutes of the contest before a Hafemeister steal led to a Sean Neylon bucket with 4:41 remaining in the first half to give the Cardinals a 33-28 lead. Catholic used a 6-0 run to take a 37-28 lead, its biggest of the half, with 3:12 remaining after a Herbert free throw. After the Blue Jays trimmed the lead to six, Sechi scored to push it back to eight with less than a minute to play. However, Austin Finarelli drained a three with eight ticks on the clock to send it into the locker room as a five-point game. 

Finarelli cut the deficit to just one point four minutes into the second half, but buckets from Hafemeister at the 15:05 mark and the 14:32 mark pushed the Cardinals ahead 47-42. Elizabethtown used a 5-0 run to tie the contest at 47, but a three-point play from Sechi pushed Catholic back ahead. With the game tied once more at 50-50, Catholic used a 7-0 run as Neylon scored with 10:10 left in the contest to make it 57-50. 

Catholic pushed the lead as high as 11 with 3:58 to play after a Herbert free throw before Elizabethtown trimmed it to five with 2:45 on the clock after a Rance Russo jumper. Catholic would go seven for eight from the charity stripe over the final 53 seconds to ride out a nine-point conference road victory. 

BY THE NUMBERS

• As noted above, Sechi now has three double-doubles this season for Catholic. The graduate from Houston, Texas has been outstanding, especially as of late, for the Cardinals, recording all three double-doubles after the new year. In nine games since the calendar turned to January, Sechi has scored 10 or more points in seven while grabbing seven or more rebounds in all but one. He is now over 200 points for the season and is averaging 10.8 points and 6.6 rebounds per game. 
• A consistent scorer all season long, Kelly recorded his sixth game of 15 or more points this season. Kelly has scored 12 or more points in each of the last three games and has scored 11 or more points in seven of the team's last eight games. With five regular season games remaining plus at least one Landmark Conference Tournament contest, Kelly is 52 points shy of reaching 1,000 for his career. 
• With 14 points tonight, Hafemeister recorded his fourth straight games in double figures. He has now reaching 300 points for the third straight season and is one point shy of 1,300 for his career. 
• Herbert matched his career-high with 16 points while grabbing eight rebounds for Catholic. Herbert's 16 points are a season-high and his sixth game this season in double figures. He scored 16 points and grabbed nine rebounds in January 2023 against Susquehanna. 
• Catholic is one win shy of matching last season's 13-game winning streak. The 2014-15 Cardinals won 15 straight contests between December 29, 2014 and February 21, 2015. 

Catholic will travel to Scranton for a Landmark Conference doubleheader on Saturday afternoon.