The University of Maine men’s basketball team finally came out on the right side of a nail-biter Saturday afternoon, staving off New Jersey Tech 70-64 on the road to get its first America East win of the season.
The Black Bears, who snapped a frustrating six-game losing streak, never trailed during Saturday’s contest, but the Highlanders brought it within two points on three separate occasions in the final four minutes of play. Three-point plays from grad students Adam Cisse and Ja’Shonte Wright-McLeish in crunch time helped keep NJIT at bay, before junior Kellen Tynes closed things out with two free throws and a breakaway assist to sophomore Jaden Clayton in the final seconds.
With the victory, UMaine’s conference record improved to 1-3 (9-10 overall), following three consecutive losses by seven or fewer points to America East opponents Vermont, New Hampshire and Maryland-Baltimore County in the past two weeks. NJIT remains winless (0-5) in conference play, with a 4-13 overall record.
“I’m really proud of our guys. This is our fourth game in the [Conference] and every single game has been like this,” UMaine head coach Chris Markwood said. “We’ve come up on the short end the first three times — all games that we had second-half leads in — so I’m really proud of the toughness that we showed.”
While quiet in the final stretch of play, 6-foot-7 senior forward Peter Filipovity was the Black Bears’ player of the game, scoring 20 points (16 in the first half), reeling in 12 rebounds (four offensive) and dishing out two assists. Converting 58.4 percent of his field goal attempts this season, Filipovity shot an efficient 7-for-10 from the field on Saturday, while going 6-for-7 from the free throw line.
“He’s a tough kid, a hard worker,” Markwood said of Filipovity. “He’s just got a knack for the basketball, and a knack for scoring in a really crafty way around the rim. He showed up today — he’s had a lot of those games for us this year.”
Cisse and Tynes were UMaine’s other two double-digit scorers on Saturday, with 12 and 10 points apiece. Tynes also added eight rebounds, three assists, five steals and a block. Clayton was UMaine’s leading assist man with five of the team’s 15.
NJIT was led by senior guard Mekhi Gray with 21 points (10-for-14 shooting), and also got solid production from freshman guard Tariq Francis off the bench, who logged 18 points, six rebounds and four assists in 34 minutes of play.
Moving forward, the Black Bears will look to build on this victory with home games against Albany (2-1) at 6 p.m. Thursday and Binghamton (0-4) at 2 p.m. Jan. 27.
