CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The Mitchell College men's basketball team opened a five-game road swing in style on Thursday night, defeating Lesley University by a 72-66 final at Buckingham, Brown & Nichols.
After trailing for the majority of the first 28 minutes of play, the Mariners outscored the Lynx 49-37 in the second half to make up the deficit. With the win, Mitchell improved to 10-9 overall and 6-5 in the conference. Lesley dropped to 6-13 overall and 4-6 in the NECC.
Junior Joshua Ford paced Mitchell with 24 points on 8-of-14 shooting while grabbing a team-high seven rebounds. Ford went 8-of-10 from the charity stripe and swiped a game-high five steals. Freshman Devonta Mosley and junior Anthony Epps were each in double figures as well, posting 12 and 10 points, respectively.
The Lynx had three players in double figures. Justin Rosa was 6-of-11 from the floor for a team-high 16 points while Anthony Mattocks knocked down three from deep on his way to 15 points. Brian Gladowski chipped in with 11 points off the bench.
The Lynx buried their first four field goals of the game from three-point range, giving them a 12-6 lead with 14:14 to go in the opening half. Mattocks and Rosa opened up the scoring before Mike Kaufman knocked down two consecutive threes, both off of feeds from Mattocks.
With 6:16 left in the half, a Mosley jumper cut the Lynx lead down to one at 18-17. Rosa and Gladowski then combined for seven unanswered points to push the lead back to eight, and the Lynx went into halftime leading 29-23.
Lesley shot 42 percent from the field, including going 5-of-8 from three-point range, in the first 20 minutes while holding the Mariners to just 1-of-7 from deep and 31-percent shooting from the floor.
In the second half, the Mariners slowly chipped away at the deficit and tied the score up at 39-39. The balanced attack was led by five points apiece from Epps and junior Alex Del Rio and four from Ford. Mitchell later took its first lead since the opening minutes of the game on a thunderous one-handed slam by Ford in the open court that made it 41-39.
With 9:54 left to play and the Lynx trailing by one, the Mariners opened it up with a 14-3 spurt to cushion their lead to 12 points at 63-51. Ford and Epps paced the run again as they combined for nine of the 14 points.
Over the next three minutes, the Lynx climbed back in as they scored eight straight. Matt Gibson capped the run with a three-pointer as Lesley trailed by just four with 2:00 to go. Gibson would hit another three with just 13 seconds left to get it within two, but it was not enough as the Mariners were able to hang on. Mitchell was clutch from the free throw line down the stretch, going 7-of-8 to cap the win.
Mitchell will next travel to Elms College on Saturday, February 2. Tip-off is slated for 2 p.m.