TROY, N.Y. — After taking a sizable lead into the locker room, the Southern Vermont College men's basketball team came out and scored 29 unanswered points in the second period on its way to a 106-44 win over Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Saturday evening in the opening round of the 2015 Tri-state Shootout Tournament hosted by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
The Mountaineers improve to 6-2 on the season with the victory, their second this year against MCLA, while tying the all-time series against the Trailblazers at 4-4 as SVC has now taken the last three meetings between the two sides. Southern Vermont looks to win its third consecutive Tri-state crown on Sunday, taking on the hosting Engineers in the 3 p.m. championship contest. R.P.I. defeated Vermont Technical College 95-37 earlier on Saturday in the tournament's opener.
SVC was led by a career-best 27 points from senior William Bromirski (Cambridge, N.Y.) as he went 4-8 from downtown and 11-12 at the free throw line; he added three rebounds, three assists and two steals to his line in the win. Classmate DeShawn Hamlet (Hartford, Conn.) notched his first double-double of the year with 10 points and a team-best 12 rebounds while dishing out three assists and swiping three steals.
Mountaineer junior Rayshawn Taylor (Silver Spring, Md.) notched 13 points in just 13 minutes off the Southern Vermont bench while classmate Davante Jordan (Great Mills, Md.) had another 13 points in 14 minutes of reserve time. Fellow junior Nate Goldsmith (Capitol Heights, Md.) registered 10 points, eight rebounds and three assists, also doing so off the SVC bench. Senior Casey Hall (Albany, N.Y.) had four blocks on the night, tying him for the all-time SVC blocks record of 94.
Southern Vermont shot 46.7 percent (35-75) from the field while holding MCLA to a 19.7 percent (13-66) clip from the floor. Both teams grabbed 52 rebounds as SVC forced 26 Trailblazer turnovers to the Mountaineers' nine; the giveaways resulted in Southern Vermont outscoring MCLA 34-5 in points off turnovers.
The Mountaineers never trailed all night, taking the opening tip and turning it into a Hamlet layup for the early lead. That would start a 13-3 SVC run that was capped by a Bromirski trey, but MCLA stayed close with the next six points to make it a 13-9 Southern Vermont advantage. Southern Vermont then started to pull away with 10 unanswered points through the midway of the opening half before a Trailblazer three set the score at 25-16 with 6:09 to go in the stanza.
SVC senior Jeff James (Bowie, Md.) notched five straight points of his own to help the Mountaineers double up MCLA (34-17), and Bromirski would follow with three free throws after he was fouled beyond the arc. Those points were all part of a 14-2 Southern Vermont run that closed out the period, a Goldsmith layup just seconds before the horn sending the game to the intermission with the Mountaineers up 41-19.
Bromirski started the second frame with an old-fashioned three-point play, only to see the Trailblazers cut their deficit to 15 with 10 straight points on a pair of triples. That would be the closest MCLA would get the rest of the night, however, as a Bromirski basket from outside the perimeter launched a 29-0 SVC run that put the game out of the Trailblazers' reach; Bromirski had 10 points in that stretch while Jordan added another nine.
Taylor would tally six of eight unanswered Mountaineer points that bumped the score to 86-33 with just under nine minutes remaining, and he then registered another four straight as SVC inched closer to triple digits. The Mountaineers made their way past the 100-point mark for the third time this year with 2:38 on the clock, closing out the big win to put themselves back in the Tri-state title game for the third straight season. Southern Vermont is now averaging 85.5 points per game on the year, shooting 46.3 percent from the field as a team.