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BANGOR – There isn’t quite as much on the line when the Husson College and Saint Joseph’s College men square off on the hardwood these days, but you wouldn’t have guessed that from the intensity shown in Tuesday night’s basketball game.
Husson’s Eagles came out flying in the first half, but it was their more deliberate, inside-out attack in the second that dictated tempo and allowed them to finally pull away from the stubborn Monks for an 80-67 victory at Newman Gymnasium.
“You’re never going to have a Husson-St. Joe’s game that’s going to lack for intensity,” said Husson coach Warren Caruso. “Maybe in the second half at times it wasn’t pretty, but I thought we did a good job of controlling the tempo and maintaining our poise in a physical game.”
Husson co-captain Jason Harvey led the Eagles, now 2-1, by scoring 19 of his game-high 25 points in the second half. The senior guard scored seven points on three straight hoops during a 9-0 run early in the second half and then scored Husson’s final nine points of the game and figured in the final 12 to help the Eagles finally nail down the win.
The Monks never led the entire game, but kept coming back to tighten things up after Husson took leads of 13 points twice in the first half and 14 in the second.
“Every time we made a good run and thought we had them put away, they’d hit a big shot and keep coming back,” said Harvey, who also dished out a game-high five assists to go with five rebounds. “The way we battled tonight definitely showed we can compete at a high level.”
After trying to run wild and bomb away from the perimeter for most of the first half, the Eagles changed things up and worked the ball inside to freshman center Martin Cleveland, who had 10 of his 12 total points in the second half.
“We got the ball inside for the first few minutes of the second half to Marty and it paid off for us,” Harvey said. “He got some easy looks and once they started doubling on him, it opened up for some other guys.”
Those other guys included sophomore transfer guard Blaine Meehan of Hampden, who had 11 points, and junior guard Sheraud Lee, who had 10 off the bench to go with five boards.
“We had a great rotation coming off the bench where Fabian Figueroa, Brock Bradford and Sheraud Lee really came in and picked us up early,” Caruso said. “That helped get us that initial 12-14 point cushion.
“The bench played much better than they did the first two games, particularly offensively, and that was a big step for us.”
Elbie Murphy led a resurgent Saint Joseph’s squad that refused to pack it in on both ends of the court. The sophomore forward had 23 points, nine steals, and eight rebounds.
The 2-2 Monks charged back from a 53-39 deficit to make it 58-52 with 9:07 left, and kept it close until the stretch, when Husson turned a 68-62 lead with 41/2 minutes left into 76-63 with 2:54 to go.
“We’re not going to win many games giving up 80 points and I think a lot of it is the way the game was more up and down, plus we took some bad shots,” said Monks coach Rob Sanicola. “We did well to come back, but we didn’t seem to stop them when we really had to.”
Marcus Alexander scored 12 for the Monks with Chad Pulkkinen, a senior from Windham, and Pat Mileski having 11 each. Mileski also grabbed eight rebounds off the bench.
After committing 16 turnovers in the first half, Husson had just six the rest of the game while shooting a solid 48.3 percent from the field for the game. The Monks had 20 turnovers.
Husson grabbed 34 rebounds to the Monks’ 33.
EAGLES 80, MONKS 67
Saint Joseph’s (2-2) Husson (2-1)
Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP
Vachon 0 2 0 0 0 Meehan 4 6 11
Pulkkinen 3 11 3 4 11 Kissinger 2 4
Alexander 5 10 2 4 12 Muzzy 2 7 7
Plummer 1 5 0 0 2 Cleveland 4 10 4 9 12
Ouellet 0 1 0 0 0 Harvey 7 15 11 25
Mattison 1 3 0 0 2 Figueroa 3 6
Murphy 4 14 14 22 23 Bradford 2 5
Eatmon 1 1 0 0 2 Lee 4 7 10
Oliver 1 4 0 0 2 MacKnzie 0 0
Rue 0 1 0 0 0 Henry 0 0 0 0
Mileski 4 6 0 0 11
Emmons 1 1 0 0 2
Totals 21 59 19 30 67 Totals 28 58 16 26 80
Saint Joseph’s 32 67
Husson 38 80
3-pt. goals – Saint Joseph’s (6-16): Pulkkinen 2-4, Plummer 0-2, Mattison 0-1, Murphy 1-3, Oliver 0-1, Rue 0-1, Mileski 3-4; Husson (8-21): Meehan 3-4, Kissinger 0-2, Muzzy 0-2, Harvey 2-5, Figueroa 0-1, Bradford 1-3, Lee 2-4
Attendance: 325 (est.)
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