ORONO – Give the College of St. Joseph credit.

The NAIA Division II school in Rutland, Vt., stayed with the University of Maine men’s basketball team through the first half of Wednesday evening’s home opener at Alfond Arena. But eventually, the Black Bears’ size and depth were too much for the Saints.

Maine placed five players in double figures, including 18 points apiece from Chris Bruff and Phillipe Tchekane Bofia, as Maine rolled in the second half to a 97-69 win.

Junior Bernal chipped in with 16 points, while Kevin Reed scored 14 and Houlton native Mark Socoby added 12.

Bernal, a freshman, had a stellar all-around game to lead the 2-3 Bears to their second straight victory. He had game highs in assists (11), rebounds (7), and steals (5).

Socoby, also a freshman, added seven assists, four rebounds and three steals.

“As Coach always says, we need everybody to make a contribution on the floor,” Bofia said. “As a team we have to make sure we come hard and everybody has the same intensity.”

That was lacking a bit early as the Bears had to contend with the feisty Saints (2-3), whose tallest player in uniform Wednesday was 6-foot-5 Tyler Herrington.

“They came out and played hard, and they weren’t even scared a little bit,” Maine coach Ted Woodward said. “… We had some breakdowns in some things we wanted to do, I don’t think we rebounded the ball that well, didn’t defend as well as I would have liked. It kind of took us a half to focus on things we wanted to do.”

With only a four-point lead at halftime, the Black Bears used a 14-2 run early in the second half to finally put some distance between themselves and the Saints. Socoby scored twice in the run on runners in the lane, and Kevin Reed hit two 3-pointers to spark Maine.

A 16-0 run put Maine up 67-40. Bernal was torrid in that stretch, hitting a layup and scoring twice off his own steals.

“Junior was way too tough for us,” St. Joseph coach Jim Graffam said. “We had no answer for him.”

Maine had a shaky 37-33 lead at halftime.

St. Joseph opened with a 10-2 lead thanks to five points from 6-2 Saints center Rich Ortega (game-high 19 points). Maine eventually went ahead 17-12, but the Saints came back to tie it at 19-19 on Rich Bailey’s miracle heave against a wall of Maine defenders.

The teams were tied three more ties until two Tchekane Bofia free throws made it 30-28. Chris Bruff later dunked a Bernal pass, drawing a foul and completing the three-point play for a 33-30 edge. Olli Ahvenniemi hit a hook shot as Maine went up by seven, the Bears’ biggest lead of the half.

Camped out in the left corner, St. Joseph’s Ruben Brown drained a 3-pointer and Ortega managed an offensive-rebound basket in traffic before halftime.

“I think we had a sloppy first half,” Bernal said. “We played down to what we can do and it caught us by surprise, but we have to learn from this. We have to play 40 minutes of strong basketball no matter who steps on our court.”

Some of sloppy play can be attributed to the absences of starters Reed, who spent most of the first half on the bench with two fouls, and forward Jon Sheets, who left with an injury two minutes into the game. He didn’t return.

The smaller, guard-oriented Saints made 13 of 31 3-point attempts.

“We knew had very little chance of winning the game coming in,” said Graffam, a Waldoboro native. “But we knew we were a little bit quicker than them and we wanted to take advantage of that. … I was very impressed with the 40-minute effort. We just got outmanned in the second half.”

Sophomore guard Jesse Keith of Hermon scored seven points for the Bears, the first points of his collegiate career.

BLACK BEARS 97, SAINTS 69

St. Joseph (2-3) Maine (2-3)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Herrington 3 5 0 0 8 Bruff 8 9 18

Ortega 8 13 2 3 19 Sheets 0 0 0

Kimball 3 8 0 0 9 Bofia 7 9 18

Marc 2 8 0 0 4 Bernal 8 16 0 16

Bailey 2 5 2 2 6 Reed 6 13 14

Valdez 0 0 0 0 0 Keith 2 2 7

Brown 2 8 0 0 5 Socoby 5 11 12

Childs 1 2 0 0 3 Hartnett 1 2

Freeman 0 1 0 0 0 Cook 0 2 0

Fuel 0 1 0 0 0 Ahvniemi 3 7 6

Loomis 1 4 0 0 3 Cavnaugh 1 4

Parada 0 0 0 0 0

Clark 2 3 0 0 6

Madgwick 2 2 0 0 6

Totals 26 60 4 5 69 41 75 11 19 97

St. Joseph 33 69

Maine 37 97

3-pt. goals – St. Joseph (13-31): Herrington 2-3, Ortega 1-4, Kimball 3-5, Marc 0-3, Bailey 0-1, Brown 1-5, Childs 1-2, Fuel 0-1, Loomis 1-3, Clark 2-2, Madqwick 2-2; Maine (4-14): Reed 2-6, Keith 1-1, Socoby 0-4, Hartnett 0-2, Cavanaugh 1-1

Attendance: 1,168