QUINCY, Mass.- The Eastern Nazarene men's basketball team faced off against Commonwealth Coast Conference opponent, Nichols College, Thursday night in the Lahue Physical Education Center. The Lions led by as many as ten in the contest, but lost their lead to a hard-working Bison squad in the final 3:27 and could not capitalize on opportunities down the stretch to get it back, as the Bison secured their fourth win of the season. The victory brings Nichols to 4-8 overall and 2-3 in CCC play, while ENC drops to 2-10 on the season and 1-4 in conference action.
The Bison scored the game's first point on a free-throw from junior Justin Kuntz. That would be the only lead that NC would secure in the half as the Lions excelled behind balanced team play. With 12:23 remaining in the period, a Kris Bergstol lay-up put the Lions up by 10. Nichols slowly began to work their way back, and with 5:59 they had cut the margin to six following a bucket from sophomore Ryan Sheehan. The Lions then ran into a dry spell, which resulted in a tie ball game with 3:11 to play in the first period. Going into the break the game was tied at 28-28.
In the second half, the tables were flipped, with Nichols leading most of the way. With 5:56 to go in the game, the Lions grabbed their first second half lead on junior Aaron Johnson's third 3-pointer of the game. Eastern Nazarene would increase the margin to three, two more times, but Nichols refused to let up, taking the lead back with 3:27 to go. The Lions had several chances to tie in the final minutes but failed to take advantage of opportune steals, and they were handed their tenth loss of the year.
The Bison were led by sophomore Ryan Sheehan who scored 16 points in the contest. Kuntz had a solid game with eight points, eight rebounds and three steals. Rounding out the top-scorers for Nichols was freshman Jalen Graham who posted eleven points. Impressively, all ten players who went into the game scored for the Bison, with their bench posting 14 points on the night.
Junior Chima Ezeigbo secured his eighth double-double of the season, tallying a game-high 18 points and 15 rebounds in the contest. Classmate Aaron Johnson scored 11 for the Lions, hitting 3-6 from downtown. Sophomore Brian Hard had another good outing, contributing nine points, while teammate Mike McCoy chipped in seven points and six rebounds in 25 minutes of play. Max Barbosa and DeAngelo Alston had five assists apiece.
Eastern Nazarene returns to the basketball court on Saturday, January 14 at Western New England in a 3:00p.m. CCC match-up. Nichols heads back to face University of New England at 2:00p.m.