UMaine holds off stubborn Seawolves Defense, foul shooting key Bears’ win

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ORONO – The University of Maine received two double-doubles from their frontcourt and four double-digit scorers overall but still had to sweat it down the stretch to post their third America East men’s basketball win.

The Black Bears did it with defense and foul shooting down the stretch to pull out a 62-56 basketball victory over a stubborn Stony Brook University squad.

Maine made 11 steals (to SBU’s four), helped force 18 turnovers (to Maine’s 14), and scored 19 points off SBU turnovers (to SBU’s seven) in the game. The Bears also hit 16 of 23 free throws overall and eight of 12 in the final 99 seconds.

Junior center Olli Ahvenniemi had 10 points and 11 rebounds, and freshman forward Philippe Tchekane Bofia had 12 points and 10 boards.

“It was very physical, but I like playing that way,” said Ahvenniemi, who notched his first double-double of the season while also blocking four shots. “They were a little smaller team, so we just tried to use our size, but they crashed the boards pretty hard.”

Senior guard Ernest Turner led all scorers with 17.

“Their big guy was blocking shots and he did a nice job of hanging around and making us change our shots a bit,” said SBU coach Steve Pikiell.

The win, which makes Maine 8-11 overall and 3-5 in America East play, was particularly satisfying since it came on the heels of a 21-point loss to Maryland Baltimore County in which the Bears were outscored 23-2 down the stretch.

“We didn’t feel like we played defense to our level of capability in our last game and it was a huge focus of ours to come out and do that tonight,” said Maine coach Ted Woodward. “We really locked down when we had to.”

Maine started a 10-1 scoring run with 17 minutes left in the game to take a 45-35 lead with 14:11 left, but SBU closed the gap again, this time by scoring 11 of the next 14 points over a six-minute span to make it 48-46 Maine with 7:30 to go.

The Bears gave themselves a bit of breathing room and kept the cushion around four or five points for the next five minutes, but the Seawolves scored five straight points to make it 54-51 Maine with 2:03 left.

Maine ratcheted up the defensive pressure over the next minute and SBU missed three shots, while – on the other end – the Bears were going inside, getting fouled and hitting all four foul shots. The Seawolves (3-14, 1-7) were never closer than five points the rest of the way.

“We were in the bonus, so coach told us to be aggressive and just go to the hole,” said Turner. “They slowed us down with the trapping and the press and stuff, but we had guys make some big shots.”

Junior guard Jon Sheets finished with 13 points and a game-high four assists.

Bobby Santiago led the Seawolves with 16 points and also grabbed eight boards. Solomon Bamiro had 11 points and 12 rebounds. Leading scorer Mitchell Beauford was held to five points – 11.4 below his average – on 2-for-12 shooting. Maine point guard Rashard Turner guarded Beauford when Maine went man-to-man, but the Bears used a lot of help-side defense to bottle up Beauford.

“Mitchell’s our best player and he struggled to score tonight,” said Pikiell. “We don’t have a lot of other guys who can make up for the production he gives.”

Maine was outrebounded 41-39 overall, but Woodward was pleased with his team’s efforts on the boards.

“We’ve been struggling on the offensive boards and that was a huge focus of ours tonight,” he said. “Chris Bruff got deep in there, and Philippe and Olli were going after them. The fact we were just getting in there was great.”

The teams played each other even for the first five minutes, before Maine used an 11-0 run to go up 23-14 with 8:02 left in the first half. The Seawolves answered down the stretch with a 13-2 run, but an end-to-end drive with 4.7 seconds left and lay-in at the buzzer by Rashard Turner knotted things up at 31.

BLACK BEARS 62, SEAWOLVES 56

Stony Brook (3-15) Maine (8-11)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG F AF TP

Popoko 1 8 3 4 5 Ahvnnmi 3 7 4 6 10

Cuninghm 2 5 3 6 8 Bfia-Tchk 5 10 2 3 12

Goba 0 1 0 0 0 R.Turner 1 8 6 6 8

Beauford 2 12 1 2 5 E.Turner 6 13 3 4 17

Santiago 6 13 0 0 16 Sheets 4 11 1 2 13

Hardy 0 4 0 0 0 Bruff 1 4 0 2 2

Cox 0 0 0 0 0 Hight 0 1 0 0 0

Noble 0 0 0 0 0 Petkus 0 3 0 0 0

Feist 3 6 0 0 7

Bamiro 4 5 3 4 11

Bakinde 2 2 0 2 4

Totals 20 56 10 18 56 Totals 20 57 16 23 62

Stony Brook 31 56

Maine 31 62

3-pt. goals – Stony Brook (6-16): Popoko (0-2), Cunningham (1-1), Santiago (4-8), Hardy (0-2), Feist (1-3); Maine (6-22): R. Turner (0-3), E. Turner (2-7), Sheets (4-9), Petkus (0-3)

Attendance: 1,239