BENNINGTON, Vt. — Trailing by one at halftime, Southern Vermont College came out of the locker room and stormed to a 15-point advantage in the final 20 minutes Tuesday night to capture an 83-69 win over Newbury College in New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) men's basketball action at the Mountaineer Athletic Center.
The Nighthawks took a slim 36-35 edge into the intermission, but SVC went on a 10-1 run to start the second period and never looked back.
Southern Vermont improves to 10-3 overall on the year and 4-0 in NECC action while NC drops to 2-10 and 1-3 against the league.
The Mountaineers next head to Daniel Webster College on Thursday, starting an NECC contest at 7:30 p.m. Newbury is off until Saturday when the Nighthawks host Daniel Webster at 2 p.m.
SVC senior DeShawn Hamlet (Hartford, Conn.) led the team with 17 points, adding a game-best 12 boards for his third double-double of the year. Junior Rayshawn Taylor (Silver Spring, Md.) followed with 15 points, four rebounds and two assists in 18 minutes off the bench while classmate Nate Goldsmith (Capitol Heights, Md.) provided another 13 points and seven boards in 16 minutes of reserve time. Senior Jeff James (Bowie, Md.) had 12 points and 10 rebounds for his first double-double of the year, adding four assists and two steals to his line. Fellow senior William Bromirski (Cambridge, N.Y.) chipped in with 10 points in the victory.
Newbury junior Kenny Ramos (Roxbury, Mass.) led all players with 20 points, pulling down a team-best 10 rebounds for the double-double. Sophomore Jeduan Langston (Boston, Mass.) recorded 15 points and seven boards while junior Devin Johnson (Manchester, Conn.) tallied nine points and eight rebounds in the effort.
Southern Vermont shot 32-68 (47.1 percent) from the floor as Newbury finished with a 39.7 percent (27-68) performance from field goal range. The Mountaineers grabbed a 46-42 rebounding advantage while outscoring NC 50-38 in the paint. SVC turned the ball over 15 times to Newbury's 18, and Southern Vermont turned those mishaps into a 16-14 edge in points off turnovers.
NC was able to keep the Mountaineers off the scoreboard through nearly the first four minutes of the game, but the Nighthawks only scored five points themselves for the narrow upper hand. SVC inched back and made it a 7-6 Newbury lead with a layup by senior Casey Hall (Albany, N.Y.), keeping pace with NC midway through the first half. Ramos scored eight-of-10 Nighthawk points while Southern Vermont took its first lead of the night with nine unanswered; sophomore Daemond Carter (Forestville, Md.) started that spurt with a three-ball before Goldsmith tipped home a missed Mountaineer shot.
There would be seven lead changes through the final eight minutes of the stanza as the two sides battled back-and-forth. Bromirski knocked down his 100th three-pointer as a Mountaineer for a 24-21 SVC upper hand, but an NC layup preceded Langston slamming home a dunk for Newbury to go back in front. Hamlet scored baskets to put his team ahead on two occasions during the next minute of play, only to have the Nighthawks respond each time with scores from beyond the arc. A Johnson trey made it a 34-30 NC advantage with 3:18 to go before halftime, and Southern Vermont then closed out the period with a 5-2 edge to go into intermission down 36-35.
A Hall layup put SVC on top early into the second half, starting a 10-1 Mountaineer run that included a Bromirski three and a Hamlet and-one play. Taylor would get a jumper to go to give Southern Vermont a 53-44 upper hand, and he then dropped a triple for his team to go on top by 11. A Ramos dunk cut it to seven at 60-53, but the SVC offense continued to click to push its lead back into double digits. Goldsmith put home a pair of layups during a 6-0 Mountaineer spurt, all but ending it as Southern Vermont went up 78-61 with 4:15 left to play. SVC went without a basket in the final two minutes of action, but Newbury was held to just two scores of its own in that time to fall far short of making a comeback.