CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The Mitchell College men's basketball team lost a 73-61 decision at Lesley University on Thursday night. 

Lesley (4-13, 1-6 NECC) earned its first conference win of the season behind the solid play of freshmen Christian Fuentes and Kris Bennett. Bennett finished with six points and seven rebounds, while Fuentes scored all of his 12 points on first-half three-pointers.

Fuentes took a liking to his first career start, nailing three straight three-pointers out of the gate to give the Lynx a 15-14 lead at the 13:00 mark. His fourth triple of the half was followed by a John Sanchez trey that capped a 14-3 Lynx run to close out the half, at which point Lesley led 39-27.       

Bennett was to the second half what his classmate was to the first, streaking baseline for an alley-oop dunk on a feed from Thorton Paul that put Lesley on top 41-27 out of intermission. Back-to-back jumpers from Mitchell freshman Tim Quinn and junior Paul Jefferson cut the margin to 10 inside the 18:00 mark.

Lesley responded with a 14-4 run in which six different players scored to go ahead 18 with under 11:00 to play, and with the Lynx up by 15, Bennett delivered the exclamation point to the team's first league win. Off a miss from Jesus Trejo, the 6-foot-8 freshman ran untouched through the lane for the one-handed put-back dunk, sending the Lynx to victory and snapping the team's six-game slide.

Trejo posted a double-double of 14 points and 11 rebounds, while Sanchez scored a team-high 15 points to go along with six assists and six rebounds. For Mitchell, Quinn scored a game-high 17 points and pulled down five boards, and Jefferson added 13 points on 3-for-7 shooting from distance. Junior Julio Contreras added team highs of seven rebounds and four assists.

Mitchell (1-17 overall, 0-8 NECC) will next travel to Wheelock College on Saturday, January 29 at 1 p.m.