NEW LONDON, Conn. — Southern Vermont College paid a visit to Mitchell College Saturday afternoon, walking out with a 97-72 New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) men's basketball win on solid shooting from the floor.
SVC never trailed all day, yet held only a four-point edge late in the first half. The Mountaineers closed out the period on a strong note to go into the locker room up 48-34, and they then padded their lead in the closing 20 minutes to capture the league victory.
Southern Vermont improves to 18-3 on the year and stays perfect against the NECC at 12-0. SVC is next in action on Wednesday, welcoming Becker College to the Mountaineer Athletic Center on the SVC campus for an 8 p.m. Conference matchup; a win against the Hawks, currently in third place in the league standings, would secure a first-round bye for SVC in the upcoming NECC playoffs.
The victory is the sixth straight for Southern Vermont in meetings with the Mariners and extends the team's winning streak this year to 10 straight games. SVC has now won its last 30 NECC regular season contests dating back to February of 2014. After the Mountaineers defeated Mitchell 103-87 earlier this year, their average margin of victory in the season sweep of MC, a team sitting at fourth in the NECC standings, was a staggering 20.5 points. SVC is also the first team in the league to score over 1,000 points in Conference play this year with a total of 1,058 after Saturday's win.
Mountaineer senior William Bromirski (Cambridge, N.Y.) tied the game-high of 23 points, going 6-for-7 from three-point range while adding three rebounds and two assists. Senior DeShawn Hamlet (Hartford, Conn.) followed with 17 points and 11 rebounds for his sixth double-double of the year, adding four assists and three steals to his line.
SVC junior Rayshawn Taylor (Silver Spring, Md.) provided 15 points, two boards and two assists in 17 minutes off the bench, and senior Jeff James (Bowie, Md.) had a game-high seven assists to go with his 11 points and six rebounds. Sophomore Daemond Carter (Forestville, Md.) had another 11 points, six rebounds and three assists while senior Casey Hall (Albany, N.Y.) had 10 points and eight boards in the win.
The Mountaineers connected on 35-of-68 (51.5 percent) of their field goal attempts while finishing one three-pointer short of their season-high with an 11-for-24 (45.8 percent) performance. Mitchell shot 44.9 percent (31-69) from the floor while being held to just a 2-for-12 (16.7 percent) clip from three-point range. SVC controlled the glass with a 43-33 advantage in rebounds, using its offensive boards for a 12-5 edge in second-chance points. Southern Vermont ran the floor well, outscoring the Mariners 22-14 in fast break points while notching 44 points in the paint to MC's 38.
James got a pair of layups to go to open the afternoon's scoring, starting a 10-0 SVC run that was capped by Bromirski's first triple of the day. Mitchell got on the board and cut it to a six-point deficit a couple times over the next few minutes, but another Bromirski basket from behind the arc helped sustain Southern Vermont's cushion. A Mariner layup at the 12:12 mark of the first made it a 21-14 Mountaineer lead, only to see Bromirski sink his third downtown bucket of the day for the visitors to go back in front by 10.
Mitchell would bring it down to five with the help of a three-point foul, the Mariner converting each of the free throws to start a 9-2 MC run that made it a 29-22 SVC advantage. The hosts would eventually get it down to a four-point deficit on a three-pointer just under the 5:00 mark, only to see Bromirski bookend a 9-0 half-closing Mountaineer run that sent Southern Vermont into the locker room with its biggest to that point of the day (48-34).
Hamlet and Hall accounted for all 17 of the Mountaineer points in the opening seven minutes of the second half, the pair of senior bigs providing an inside-out threat as they combined for three treys while notching nine and eight points, respectively, to push SVC's upper hand to 65-44. Taylor then added a pair of layups in a 30-second span, and he registered the next three Mountaineer points from the free throw line for Southern Vermont to stay ahead comfortably.
SVC would pull away and put the game out of Mitchell's reach with a 17-2 surge, Carter dropping in his second basket from the perimeter in the early-going of that run before junior Nate Goldsmith (Capitol Heights, Md.) slammed home a dunk; Bromirski capped the stretch with seven straight points, including a sixth bucket from the outside, to put the Mountaineers up big at 91-58 with 6:13 to go. MC would trim its deficit with a 12-2 run in the waning minutes, but it would not be enough to get out of the hole as Southern Vermont finished off the decisive victory to remain undefeated in league action.