Men's Basketball Wins Four in a Row; Defeats SNHU, 101-92
MANCHESTER, NH – Winning their fourth straight, including
the last two on the road, the Merrimack men's basketball team
came away with a 101-92 win at Southern New Hampshire Tuesday
evening in Manchester.
Sophomore Wayne Mack (Paterson,
NJ) scored a career-high 22 points as one of five Warriors
in double figures. Junior Dee Mency (Hagerstown,
MD) scored a team-high 23 points, including 4-of-5 from
three-point range.
1st Half
On perfect shooting from long range (4-of-4) in the first five
minutes, Mack and senior captain Darren Duncan
(Briarwood, NY) each had a pair of threes and scored eight
points for the Warriors to gain an early 21-17 advantage.
Midway through the first half (10:00) with Merrimack leading
27-26, Southern New Hampshire was shooting a staggering 65% from
the field, while Merrimack shot 59% and 71% (5-of-7) from
three-point range.
Following a steal by Mack and hurdle of a fallen Penmen at the
4:00 mark, Mack found classmate Roland Davis (Deer
Park, NY) who laid in two of the Warriors 21 first half
points off turnovers to arrive at the games fourth tie, 38-38.
Ending the first half with an 11-3 run and a seven point
halftime cushion (50-43), Merrimack cashed in on a pair of
three-point plays by Duncan and Craig Woehnker (Colts Neck, NJ) and
a long ball from Davis. In a first half that featured 14 lead
changes, Merrimack made 6-of-11 from beyond the arc to shoot 55%,
while the Penmen were just 25% (3-of-12).
2nd Half
To begin the second half, Mency scored seven points to extend the
Warriors lead to 10 at the 14:00 mark. Merrimack would go on to
lead by as much as 17 at the 10:15 mark on a three from Mency, but
the resilient Penmen clawed back to within nine at the 4:45 mark
following a pair of threes from Hanell Velez and two of Stephen
Wood's game-high 33 points.
The Warriors slowed the pace of the game at the 3:30 mark,
running down more than a minute on one possession before sophomore
Aaron
Strothers (Wareham, MA) scored two of his 11 on a dish
from Duncan. On the next sequence, Duncan lobbed his eleventh
assist of the game to Strothers for a two-handed jam. For Duncan,
it was his second straight game with at least 10 helpers.
Reaching the 100-point plateau for the first time since a 102-87 win at
UMass-Lowell on January 8, 2008, Duncan hit a pair of free throws
while in the bonus to reach triple digits.
Improving to 5-3 (4-2 NE-10), the Warriors conclude their
three-game road trip at the University of New Haven (0-6, 0-5
NE-10) on December 19 at 2:00pm in West Haven, Connecticut.
