Springfield, Mass. - December 4, 2019 - The Springfield College men's basketball team continued its strong start to the 2019 campaign as it rallied for a 67-62 win over Trinity in non-conference play in Blake Arena on Wednesday night.
Springfield, which was once again receiving votes in the D3hoops.com Nationall Poll, improved to 6-0 and is off to its best start since the 1997-98 squad won the first nine games of their season. The Bantams slipped to 4-4 with the loss.
Heath Post (Cheshire, Conn.) totaled 19 points, 13 rebounds, and three blocks and classmate Jake Ross (Northampton, Mass.) added 19 points, seven boards, and five assists for the Pride. Noah Cummings (Epsom, N.H.) turned in 10 points and Collin Lindsay (East Longmeadow, Mass.) contributed nine points. Springfield was held to 39% shooting from the floor, but delivered 14 assists on 22 made field goals.
Trinity owned a 42-18 advantage on points in the paint and held a slight 35-34 edge on the glass. Kyle Padmore netted a game-high 21 points, Nick Seretta added 14 points, and Donald Jorden Jr posted 10 rebounds and 10 points. The Bantams shot 16-for-30 in the first half, but Springfield's defense limited the visitors to just 35.7% (10-for-28) in the final 20 minutes.
After 15:03, the Bantams opened their early lead to 9-5 after a lay-in from Padmore, Springfield would climb back to take a 14-12 lead when Lindsay made a great cut through the lane for a tough finish at the rim at 11:49. A jumper by Ross at 7:26 allowed the Pride to gain a 22-18 advantage, only to have the Bantams respond over the next four-plus minutes with a 13-0 run, capped off by back-to-back buckets from Padmore. The Bantams would head into the halftime break with a 35-27 advantage.
After Serretta found room inside for a bucket at 16:51 to make it a 41-34 lead in favor of the visitors, Springfield answered with a 7-0 burst, getting a putback score from Cummings to knot the game up at 41-all at 13:18. Post later converted the rare four-point play at 10:34 after he knocked down a triple while getting fouled to put the Pride on top, and then followed with a step-back turnaround jumper to force the Bantams into a timeout with 9:41 to go trailing 47-43. Trinity would respond and regain a 55-54 lead on a Padmore score inside with just over five minutes to play, but that would the final time the visitors would lead on the night as Cummings muscled his way along the baseline for a finish at the rim with 3:30 on the clock to make it 58-55. Seretta would pull Trinity within one with 2:18 to play, but Ross got his defender in the air before drilling a three-pointer and Lindsay followed by knocking down a deep jumper with a defender in his face to give the Pride breathing room at 63-57 with 1:08 on the clock. Springfield would make four free throws down the stretch en route to the come-from-behind victory.
Up next for Springfield will be another non-conference showdown with Williams at 5 pm on Saturday.
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Photo by Lucy Hamilton