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BANGOR – After eight lead changes and six ties, the Husson Braves and Colby White Mules entered the final stages of Friday night’s mutual basketball opener with the chance to prove the same thing.
That youth wouldn’t be used as an excuse.
In the end, it was the White Mules of Waterville who reeled off a 6-0 run to blow open a two-point game in the nightcap of the State of Maine Tipoff Tournament at Newman Gym.
And in the end, it was the White Mules’ youngsters who walked off the floor 1-0, after posting an 81-75 win over a Braves squad picked as the 25th-best NAIA Division II teamin the country during the preseason.
Colby’s Sam Clark, who showed flashes of dominance down low en route to 20 points against the undersized Braves, said he and his teammates felt they deserved a better fate than a matchup with the host team in the first round – an “honor” traditionally reserved for the tourney’s worst team.
“We realize they chose to play us first for a reason,” Clark said. “[They were] probably figuring we were a team they could walk over easily. We took it personally a little bit and decided it wasn’t gonna happen.”
“We know something about ourselves, too,” Clark said. “About our heart down the stretch, in the last five minutes. We proved to ourselves and we proved to those guys that we weren’t gonna give in.”
Colby will face the University of Southern Maine at 8 p.m. today in the tourney’s championship round. St. Joseph’s and Husson will vie in the 6 p.m. consolation game. The Huskies of Gorham defeated the Monks 78-70 in Friday’s first game.
Colby coach Dick Whitmore praised the play of Clark and his young squad.
“We’re a very inexperienced team, and we were just delighted with the way our guys stepped up,” Whitmore said. “We had a lot of contributions and our big guy made a lot of things happen throughout the game.”
Down the stretch, Colby found the answers it needed and held off a last-minute blitz authored by Husson’s Quinson Lancaster and Robert Pilsbury.
Clark, Nicholas Ofiesh and David Forsyth connected on layups over a 2:30 span inside the six minute mark to make it 74-64, Colby and give the Mules some breathing room.
A Pilsbury 3-pointer and two Randy Fletcher foul shots trimmed the gap to five points with 2:28 to go, and Hussson had regained momentum.
Bangor native Jake Civiello wrested that away from the Braves, though, when he fired up a 3-pointer from the left corner at the 1:51 mark.
The shot made it 77-69, and despite a pair of Lancaster steals and another Pilsbury bomb, Husson couldn’t crawl all the way back.
“I knew the shot clock was running down and we just needed to get a shot up there,” said Civiello of the 3-pointer, his first successful shot of the game. “ortunately it went in.”
Husson got seven 3-pointers and 25 points in Pilsbury’s debut, and received 12 more points from senior Matt Breen.
Colby got 14 points from Damien Strahorn, 13 from Zeb Davis and 12 from Jon Moro.
Despite shooting 48.3 percent from the floor, the Braves struggled to take care of the ball at key junctures and gave up some Colby spurts as a result.
“We had lapses. We weren’t mentally tough enough for 40 minutes. That was the difference in the game,” Husson coach Warren Caruso said. “You can say it was youth. And you can say it’s whatever you want. We just didn’t get the job done.”
In the first half, the White Mules and Braves put on an offensive exhibition, combining for 12 3-pointers and 86 points.
The Braves took command early, grabbing their biggest lead of the half (eight points) when Robert Pilsbury rained in a 22-footer that made it 15-7, but the Mules were just getting warmed up.
Colby answered with a democratic 11-0 run during which four different players did damage on three straight 3-pointers and a pair of free throws.
Colby was led by the inside effort of 6-foot-6 senior Sam Clark, who connected on six of 10 field goal attempts and scored 12 points before intermission. Jon Moro added eight more from his guard slot.
White Mules 81, Braves 75
Colby (1-0) Husson (0-1)
Name G AG F AF TP Name G AG F AF TP
Moro 5 9 0 0 12 Rivera 4 9 0 0 8
Forsyth 4 7 0 0 8 Lancaster 4 11 0 0 9
Ofiesh 2 3 0 0 4 Russo 3 5 0 0 7
Allen 0 0 0 0 0 Pilsbury 9 18 0 0 25
Strahorn 5 7 2 2 14 Robb 2 2 0 0 6
Davis 3 11 6 6 13 Breen 4 6 4 8 12
Civiello 1 6 0 1 3 Griffin 0 0 0 0 0
Clark 8 15 4 5 20 Fletcher 3 9 2 2 8
Crosman 2 11 3 3 7
Totals 30 68 15 17 81 Totals 29 60 6 10 75
Colby 44 81
Husson 42 75
3-pt. goals: Colby (6-16): Moro 2-3, Forsyth 0-1, Strahorn 22, Davis 1-6, Civiello 1-3, Crosman 0-1; Husson (11-25): Rivera 0-2, Lancaster 1-6, Russo 1-2, Pilsbury 7-12, Robb 2-2, Fletcher 0-1
Attendance: 300 (est.)
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