Resilient Bears rally past Hartford Hawks

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ORONO – If you boil Saturday night’s game down to its simplest terms, the University of Maine men made almost all of their foul shots, the University of Hartford didn’t, and Maine handed the Hawks their eighth straight loss.

If you want to look deeper, Saturday’s 61-58 victory over the Hawks at Alfond Arena was a triumph of heart and guts by a team whose bench looks like a doctor’s office waiting room.

A cramping Kevin Reed scored 17 points, grabbed six rebounds, and made two steals and two assists to help lead the injury-riddled Black Bears, who also got a gutsy effort out of fellow guard Chris Markwood.

“We played with a tremendous amount of heart,” said Maine coach Ted Woodward, whose team is now 12-13 overall and 7-9 in America East. “If there’s anything that won that game for us, that’s what it was.

“Kevin’s out there cramping up with two minutes left, but now nobody comes out anymore. I just wave them back out there because I don’t have anyone else. And I can’t say enough about the heart Chris is showing. What he’s doing right now and giving us what he can is a testament to his heart and loyalty to this team.”

Markwood, who says he may be “around 80 percent” while playing with a hamstring strain and a still-healing broken left hand, was 4-for-7 from the field for 10 points and also dished out five assists while playing 40 minutes.

“It’s been nagging me, but it’s something I’ve just got to play through. It’s my last year and I’m going to give them what I have,” said the senior from South Portland. “I’m definitely not all the way there, but it’s getting better day by day.”

Maine came back from a 10-point deficit in the first half and then kept Hartford scoreless for the first 31/2 minutes of the second half to erase a six-point halftime deficit and fuel a 10-2 run to start the second half.

Woodward shifted from a mix of zone and man-to-man in the first half to a more intense man defense, half-court trap, and pseudo-press in the second. It was a gamble with his battered Bears, but it paid off.

“I don’t know that we could have provided that same intensity for the entire game the way we did in the second half, especially given our situation and the fact they played three athletic guards,” Woodward said.

“They weren’t doing that in the first half, so they caught us off guard in the second half,” said Hartford coach Larry Harrison, whose Hawks are now 7-18 (3-13).

The teams battled back and forth over the last 14 minutes with neither leading by more than five points, but Maine was able to turn the tables on the Hawks at the foul line in the second half. The Bears reversed an early foul disadvantage (five for them, one for Hartford) midway through the second half and went to the line six times in the final 71/2 minutes, shooting 9-for-10. Over the same time frame, the Hawks went to the line eight times, but hit only seven of 14 shots after hitting their first six shots.

“We let them hang close and we didn’t get it done on the free throw line and they did,” Harrison said.

Mark Flavin paced Maine as one of four double-digit scorers with 14 points, fellow senior Joe Campbell of Bangor had 13 points and nine rebounds, and freshman walk-on guard Jason Hight of Westbook provided quality minutes with seven assists and just two turnovers in 34 minutes.

Aaron Cook led the Hawks with 14 points. Hartford outrebounded Maine 29-26, but lost despite low turnovers (11 to Maine’s 13) and good shooting (46.9 to Maine’s 47.7 percent from the field).

BLACK BEARS 61, HAWKS 58

Hartford (7-18) Maine (12-13)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Ruffin 6 14 1 2 13 Flavin 5 5 14

Goode 6 11 1 8 13 Campbell 3 10 6 6 13

Cook 4 9 4 4 14 Hight 0 2 0 0

Ford 0 4 2 2 2 Reed 6 13 1 17

Regan 4 4 1 2 9 Markwood 4 10

Rembert 0 1 0 0 0 Bruff 1 3 2

Lowndes 2 3 0 0 4 Dubois 1 1 3

Glowiak 1 3 0 0 3 Ahvenniemi 1 2

Zimnickas 0 0 0 0 0 Harknell 0 0

Totals 23 49 9 18 58 Totals 21 44 12 14 61

Hartford 30 58

Maine 24 61

3-pt. goals – Hartford (3-11): Cook 2-4, Glowiak 1-3, Rembert 0-1, Ford 0-1, Ruffin 0-2; Maine (7-20): Reed 4-9, Markwood 2-5, Campbell 1-3, Harknell 0-1, Hight 0-2

Attendance: 1,891