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WEST HARTFORD, Conn. – The University of Maine men’s basketball team extended its win streak to five games, but had to beat back a spirited second-half rally by the University of Hartford to do it.
The Black Bears pulled out a 65-64 victory despite being held scoreless in the final two minutes. Back-to-back hoops by Kevin Reed and Junior Bernal with a little more than two minutes left stood up as Maine stymied the Hawks’ offense in the final minute. Hartford had the ball with 17 seconds left, but couldn’t score.
“It wasn’t our prettiest game of the year, but defensively we did hold them in the 30’s [percent], shooting-wise,” said Maine coach Ted Woodward. “Our production wasn’t as great as it could be, but our character was.”
The Bears improve to 10-11 overall and 5-4 in America East play. Hartford, which had won three straight against Maine, drops to 9-1 (3-6 AE).
“We’ve been playing consistently, pretty much, since the America East schedule started, but now we’re making big plays, big stops, and big rebounds when we have to,” Woodward added. “Basically, we’re learning how to win.”
Woodward credited the post rotation of Olli Ahvenniemi, Philippe Tchekane Bofia, and Brian Andre as a big contributing factor in the win, both with the job they did on Hartford big man Bo Taylor and for their offensive and rebounding production.
“I thought Phil did a great job playing defense and gave us a big lift off the bench,” he said. “He and Brian and Olli all defended Taylor very well and that was a big reason we won.”
Taylor finished with 20 points and eight rebounds, but Maine outrebounded Hartford 38-33 overall and outshot the Hawks 40 percent to 38.6 from the field.
“I thought our rebounding was OK, but I thought we could have been a little bit better,” said Woodward. “We still gave up too many offensive ones [15], but we came up with some key ones when we needed them.”
Reed led the Bears with 23 points, nine rebounds and two steals. Jon Sheets hit five of 10 3-pointers and had 15 points total. Bofia added eight points and six rebounds.
Maine led by as many as 14 points in the second half, but the Hawks closed the gap with a big run and took one-point leads twice, but Maine quickly answered each time.
“We knew it was going to be a game of runs and they really turned up their defensive pressure in the second half,” Woodward said. “We certainly weren’t caught off-guard, but we didn’t execute as well as we wanted.”
Hartford was hurt by three technical fouls called on Taylor, Michael Turner and the bench with 19 seconds left in the first half. Reed hit five of the six foul shots to give Maine a 13-point halftime lead.
Jaret Von Rosenberg of Hartford hit four 3-pointers en route to leading all scorers with 30 points.
“He was making some deep 3’s,” Woodward said. “He had a couple of deep 25-footers off screens.”
BLACK BEARS 65, HAWKS 64
Maine (10-11) Hartford (9-12)
Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP
Bruff 2 4 2 2 6 VnRsnbrg 9 19 8 9 30
Sheets 5 11 0 0 15 Turner 1 4 3
Bernal 3 6 3 4 9 Zeglinski 2 5
Reed 7 19 7 12 23 Taylor 7 16 4 20
Ahveniemi 1 3 0 0 2 Zimnickas 1 2
Socoby 0 3 2 2 2 Glowiak 0 3 0
Andre 0 0 0 0 0 Tafo 2 4 4
Cook 0 0 0 0 0
TchknBfia 2 4 3 4 8
Totals 20 50 17 24 65 Totals 22 57 13 17 64
Maine 40 65
Hartford 27 64
3-pt. goals – Maine (8-24): Bruff 0-1, Sheets 5-10, Reed 2-10, Socoby 0-2, Tchekane Bofia 1-1; Hartford (7-27): Von Rosenberg 4-10, Turner 0-3, Zeglinski 1-6, Taylor 2-4, Glowiak 0-3, Tafo 0-1
Attendance: 1,823
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