Manhattan junior George Beamon scored a game-high 33 points, with 24 coming in the contest's final 20 minutes, and the visiting Jaspers scored 24 second-chance points on the night en route to a 78-66 win over Canisius College Friday in the Koessler Athletic Center. Manhattan extended its win streak to six straight and improved to 15-7 overall and 8-2 in MAAC play while the Golden Griffins slipped to 4-16 overall and 1-9 in league action.

Three Canisius players posted double figures in the scoring column, with junior Gaby Belardo leading the way with 18 points. Fellow juniors Alshwan Hymes and Harold Washington chipped in 16 apiece for the Blue and Gold, while sophomore David Sanitago added a career-high nine points to the losing cause. The loss was the Griffs' fourth straight.

Beamon finished the night shooting 14-for-24 from the field, 2-for-7 from behind the 3-point line and 3-for-5 from the free-throw line while adding eight rebounds, three steals, two assists and two blocks in 33 minutes of action. Sophomore Rhamel Brown came off the bench for Manhattan and scored 10 points to go with seven rebounds as the Jaspers out rebounded Canisius 44-39 on the night.

Canisius held a 35-33 lead at halftime before Manhattan ripped off a 14-4 run in the first 4:33 of the second stanza to jump out to a 47-39 lead with 15:27 left on the clock. In that run, Beamon accounted for eight of the Jaspers' points. A lay-up by Belardo and a dunk by Santiago off a steal made it a four-point game at 47-43, but Manhattan answered with the game's next seven points on back-to-back 3-pointers by Kidani Brutus and Beamon and a made free-throw from Beamon. Manhattan's lead hovered around eight points for the next few minutes of the game before the Jaspers pushed their lead to as many as 14 at 67-53 with 6:34 left to play thanks to Beamon's second trey of the night.

"Our approach tonight was to play small and try and muck the game up by keeping Manhattan off balance with speed and changing defenses," Canisius head coach Tom Parrotta said. "We changed defenses throughout the game, but I feel what wore us down was the rebounding margin. They got a lot of key rebounds and we've got to do a better job getting those 50/50 balls. Offensively, we had some good looks, we just need to do a better job of knocking them down."

Washington had a career-high nine rebounds for the Griffs while also dishing out four assists in the loss, which snapped Canisius' three-game winning streak over Manhattan. Santiago went 4-for-4 from the field and 1-for-1 from beyond the 3-point line to go with two steals in 18 minutes, while Hymes hit four shots from 3-point land and posted three assists for the Griffs. As a team, Canisius shot 38.3 percent from the field, 33.3 percent from 3-point range and 92.9 percent from the free-throw line.

Manhattan, which shot 43.5 percent from the floor, 29.6 percent from 3-point land and 47.6 percent from the free-throw line, got six points from five different players on the night. The Jaspers had 21 offensive rebounds in the win and posted 23 assists on 30-made buckets, with freshman forward Emmy Andujar posting a game-high seven helpers in the victory.

Canisius will close out the month of January at home on Sunday, Jan. 29, when the team plays host to Loyola (Md.) on Hall of Fame Day in the Koessler Athletic Center. Tipoff is set for 2:15 p.m.