FAIRFIELD, Conn. – For the third straight year, the Stags will face Saint Peter's University in a first-round Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament game. After splitting the last two tournament meetings, the two teams will look to earn a win that will send the winning squad to the tournament quarterfinals.

        Fairfield and Saint Peter's will meet for the third time this year with each team winning on their home court The Stags posted a 57-43 victory at Webster Bank Arena when the two teams last met on February 21. The Peacocks earned a 69-58 win at Yanitelli Center on February 7.

        The Stags come off a 57-56 road loss to Niagara University on Sunday, the seventh time that Fairfield has lost a one or two-point decision this year. Marcus Gilbert posted his second double-double of the season with 16 points and 10 rebounds, while Tyler Nelson added 14 points. Jerome Segura came off the bench to add 11 markers.

        Saint Peter's knocked off the top-seeded Iona Gaels, 68-60, in its regular-season finale. The seniors scored the first 20 points of the contest as the Peacocks led pretty much throughout the game. Desi Washington led all scorers with 19 points while classmate Tyler Gaskins added 16 points for Saint Peter's.

         Fairfield, seeded 10th in this year's tournament, lost both games on its swing through upstate New York last weekend, also falling to Canisius on Friday. Tyler Nelson was at the center of the team's offensive output last weekend, netting 23 points against Canisius before posting 14 points in the Niagara game. Nelson pulled his season scoring average into double figures over the last few weeks, reaching double digits for scoring in six straight games.  He averaged better than 17 points per game during that run (105 points in six games), including a pair of 20-plus point performances. He is scoring 10.3 points per game which is second only to Marcus Gilbert.

        Gilbert leads the team and is tied for fifth in the MAAC with a 16.5 scoring average. He also has reached double figures in six straight games (106 points) and in 27 of his 30 appearances this year. Amadou Sidibe, who missed his third straight game and fifth in the last six contests due to injury, remains the team's top rebounder with 7.0 per game.

                 The Peacocks enter the tournament as the MAAC leader in scoring defense, yielding 61 points pick game. That defense helped the team picked up an important win last weekend with its eight-point decision over Iona. The victory secured the seventh seed for Saint Peter's. The team had lost four straight games including a February 21 match up with Fairfield, a streak which came after a three-game winning streak that also included a result against the Stags. The win over Iona gave Saint Peter's Head Coach John Dunne his 100th career win.

Desi Washington posted a game-high 19 points which improved his season scoring average to 14.1 points per game. More than one-third of Washington's baskets (32 of 91) have come from three-point range. Tyler Gaskins leads the team in three-point field goals with 46 in his 31 appearances this year. Dominique Marvin is next in line with 14.1 points every forty minutes and serves as the team's top rebounder with 7.6 per game.

The winner of this game will play second-seeded Rider University on Saturday night with the game time slated for 5:30 pm at the Times Union Center.