#3 Men's Basketball Storms past #11 Southern New Hampshire
Warriors to host as long as they
remain in the Northeast-10 Conference Tournament
Men's Basketball - Northeast-10
Quarterfinals
#9 Adelphi 59, #1 Stonehill 58
#7 UMass Lowell 76, #2 Bentley 63
#3 Merrimack 80, #11 So. New Hampshire 72
#5 Saint Anselm 74, #4 Le Moyne 67
Northeast-10 Semifinals
- Thursday, March 4 - 7 p.m.
#9 Adelphi at #5 Saint Anselm
#7 UMass Lowell at #3 Merrimack
**UPDATE: With 1:42 to play in Monday night's
game, sophomore guard Wayne Mack (Paterson,
NJ) was taken off the court after suffering an upper
body injury. He was taken to Lawrence General Hospital for
precautionary reasons and was released from the hospital last
night.
NORTH ANDOVER, MA - Following losses by No. 1-seed Stonehill and
No. 2-seed Bentley, the third-seeded Merrimack men's basketball
Warriors remain the highest seed in the Northeast-10 Conference
tournament after an 80-72 win over Southern New Hampshire at Volpe
Gym Wednesday evening.
"It was a gritty win by our guys and we showed great poise when
they made their runs," said head coach Bert
Hammel. "All that matters is we found a way to win
down the stretch."
With the win, Merrimack earns the right to host a semifinal game
on Thursday at 7:00pm against No. 7 UMass-Lowell, who took down
Bentley 76-63 Wednesday evening in Waltham behind five players in
double figures. On the other side of the bracket, No. 9
Adelphi upset No. 1 Stonehill 59-58 for the right to play No. 5
Saint Anselm, who won on the road at Le Moyne, 74-67.
Senior captain Darren Duncan
(Briarwood, NY) paced the Warriors on Wednesday as he has
all season with a team-high 24 points and six assists. One
shy of reaching 2,000 points for his career, Duncan grabbed eight
rebounds and swiped three balls from the Penmen on the evening.
Early in the game, the Penmen jumped out to a 10-0 lead and Tory
Stapleton dominated the boards, grabbing seven rebounds and scoring
eight points for the visitors to silence a crowd of 620 at Volpe
Gym. Stapleton ended the half with 14 points to lead all
scorers and nine boards to lead all players on the glass. In
the game, Stapleton tallied a game-high 28 points and 15 rebounds,
including eight on the offensive end.
Mounting a run of their own, the Warriors pulled to within two
points (14-12) three minutes later on a Roland Davis (Deer
Park, NY) three-pointer. Merrimack would eventually
tie the score at 21 and take their first lead at 23-21 after a
steal and lay-in by freshman Tyler Young (Brooklyn,
NY). Young played 15 quality minutes, scoring eight
points, snatching four rebounds, grabbing two steals and swatting
one Penmen floater.
The Warriors would end the half on a 7-0 run, including a
buzzer-beating three from sophomore Wayne Mack (Paterson,
NJ), to earn the largest lead of the half, 35-29.
Starting the second half much like the first, Southern New
Hampshire pounced on the Warriors with an 11-0 run before junior
Dee
Mency (Hagerstown, MD) ended the scoreless drought
with a free throw at 16:30. Mency would end the evening with
11 points, seven boards and three assists, but his final shot of
the game proved to be the clincher.
The lead would be traded six more times in the game, but abysmal
shooting from the free throw line (13-of-25) by the Penmen made the
difference in the end. Merrimack, on the other hand, shot
26-of-31 from the stripe, including 12-of-14 by Duncan.
With four consecutive free throws made, the Warriors took the
lead for good at the 14:08 mark after Duncan sunk a pair.
The Penmen did not relent in the last 10 minutes of play as the
visitors chipped away at the lead with a healthy interior dose of
Stapleton. Crashing the boards hard, Southern New Hampshire
beat up Merrimack on second chance points 18-6 after out-rebounding
Merrimack 45-28 in the game.
To make up for the rebounding deficiencies, Merrimack forced 17
turnovers and was sparked by 17 points off the bench from
Davis. Davis also tallied a game-high four steals as part of
10 for Merrimack.
The Warriors shot 46% on the afternoon from the field, but
struggled from long range, hitting 4-of-19 from distance. No
shot was bigger, though, than one of those threes from Mency that
gave Merrimack a six point lead with 22 seconds to play on a feed
from Duncan.
With the win, Merrimack not only earned their second straight
20-win season, but improved to 15-0 when scoring 80 or more points.
