KUTZTOWN, Pa. – Junior forward Will Royal played like a monster for the Shippensburg men's basketball team on Sunday afternoon from Keystone Hall, scoring a career-high 27 points and recording his fourth double-double of the season to help the Red Raiders earn an 87-84 road victory over Kutztown.

Shippensburg (8-12, 3-5 PSAC East), one of the nation's leading three-point shooting teams, used grunt work and high-percentage shots to get a much-needed road victory. SU scored a season-high 87 points, 40 of which came in the paint, in addition to getting 24 points from the bench and scoring 20 points off turnovers.

The Red Raiders shot 80 percent from the floor in the second half, making 16-of-20 down the stretch, and finished the contest hitting 58.5 percent of its field-goal attempts. Sunday marked SU's best shooting performance in a game since a 59-percent effort against Millersville on Jan. 20, 2010 (31 games).

Perhaps most importantly, SU converted 21-of-27 (77.8 percent) attempts from the free-throw line. The Red Raiders, who led by just one point with 71 seconds remaining, held strong by making 10-of-12 at the charity stripe during that span. Four different players made both of their attempts when presented with the challenge – with Royal making all four of his attempts in the final minute.

Shippensburg entered conference play with one of the league's worst free-throw percentages (62.5 percent). Over the last seven games, SU has gone 129-of-178 from the free-throw line – a proficiency of 72.5 percent – while shooting 74 percent or better in each of the last four games.

Royal was 10-of-12 from the floor, 7-of-10 from the free-throw line and had 12 rebounds. In his last three games against the Golden Bears, Royal has had a double-double in all of them, averaging 20.6 points and 12.3 rebounds. Royal has scored 74 points in four career games against Kutztown and now has nine career double-doubles.

Senior Justin Minter had one of his best games of the season on Sunday, scoring 14 points in 25 minutes off the bench in addition to some valuable defense in the second half. Minter, who has posted double digits in back-to-back games, went 5-for-9 from the floor and hit all four of his free-throw attempts.

Senior Jaren Gembe remained solid from the point guard position, scoring 11 points and dishing out six assists compared to just two turnovers. Gembe was also 8-for-8 from the free-throw line.

All five Red Raiders starters scored at least eight points. Junior Jordan Stasyszyn had nine points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals; freshman Dylan Edgar had eight points and three blocks, and junior Craig Van Scyoc contributed eight points – including a pair of three-pointers.

Kutztown (13-7, 6-2 PSAC East) trailed by 13 points with 5:41 remaining but got back into the contest with some solid free-throw shooting of its own and some timely three-pointers. The Golden Bears missed their first eight attempts from three-point range in the contest but finished the game making seven of its last 13 shots from distance during the second half.

The Red Raiders are now 3-1 on the road in divisional games this season, with the only blemish being a one-point loss at Cheyney that was decided at the buzzer.

SU is now tied with Cheyney and West Chester at 3-5 in the division. That triumvirate trails Millersville, Bloomsburg and East Stroudsburg – all of whom boast 4-4 divisional records. All eight teams in the PSAC East are within three games of each other despite having already played eight divisional games.

Shippensburg will host Bloomsburg at 6 p.m. Wednesday from Heiges Field House.