Worcester, MA ---Freshman Marco Coppola (Watertown, MA) registered a career-best 29 points and senior Matt Carr (Somersworth, NH) notched his sixth double-double of the season and 13th of his career to lift WPI to a 64-51 triumph over host Clark Tuesday evening in a NEWMAC men's basketball game telecasted locally by TV Charter 3.    

With the victory, WPI improves to 13-3 on the year and 3-1 in conference action.  Clark evens its mark at 8-8 overall and falls to 1-3 in NEWMAC play. 

WPI jumped out gates quickly, scoring 16 of the game's first 20 points over the opening 8:30.  

The Cougars answered with a 7-0 run to slice the advantage to 16-11 but the visitors responded with a quick 9-0 spurt of their own highlighted by a pair of Carr free throws and a conventional 3-point play from Ryan Kolb (Southington, CT) 16 seconds apart pushed the lead back to double digits.

The teams went back and forth the rest of the half before Coppola nailed an off balance 3-pointer to beat the buzzer and send the Engineers into the locker room at the break with a 30-19 advantage.  

Coppola and Carr combined for 21 first half points for WPI while Marko Radovic (Belgrade, Serbia) came off the bench to can all four of his field goals attempts to post nine points for the Cougars.     

The hosts chipped away at the WPI lead, cutting the bulge to 35-30 before freshman Sam Longwell (Acton, MA) and Coppola drained four 3-pointers to push the margin back to double figures for good.  

Coppola buried 10-of-12 shots from field reaching the 20 point mark for the fourth time during his freshman season.  Carr finished with 13 points and a season-high 15 boards while Longwell and Kolb each ended with nine points.  It marked the second game in a row Longwell had canned a trio of 3-pointers. 

Radovic paced the Cougars offensively with 14 points and six rebounds.  D.J. Bailey (Palmer, MA) aided the Clark effort with eight points and a team-best seven boards.  The combo of Radovic and Bailey helped the hosts' bench outscore the WPI reserves by a 31-9 margin. Marcus Armstrong (Malden, MA) chipped in with eight points while Jake Gubitose (Fiskdale, MA) shared game-high assist honors with WPI's David Brown (Lowell, MA) with four helpers.  

WPI plays the middle game of a three-game road trip on Saturday when it ventures to Cambridge to face third-ranked MIT at 3pm.  

Clark begins a three-game road trip of its own Saturday when it heads to Springfield for a 3pm contest.