Ryan Davis had a game high 22 points Wednesday night as the top team in America East the Vermont Catamounts had their hands full with the Maine Black Bears, but pulled out a late 59-57 men’s basketball win at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.
Maine entered the game without their second leading scorer Sergio El Darwich, who is out for two weeks after breaking his finger in practice on Monday. El Darwich had led the Bears with 36 and 26 points respectively in the last two games, which were both Maine wins. It didn’t seem to effect the team though Wednesday night, as the hosts jumped all over Vermont early for the first six points of the game and eventually built an 18-7 advantage. The Catamounts took their first lead of the night when Davis hit a layup with a little less than a minute left in the first half, and Vermont took a 28-26 lead into the locker room at the break.
Vermont (14-6, 4-1 America East) kept the lead in the early stages of the second half, and then took their biggest lead at 44-34 on a Davis layup with 13:13 left to play. Maine kept fighting though, cutting it to a two point deficit several times before finally catching the Catamounts and tying it 55-55 on a pair from the free throw line from Andrew Fleming with 1:14 remaining. A nice move down low by Anthony Lamb gave the lead back to Vermont 27 seconds later, before Solomon Iluyomade drew contact and knocked down two free throws for Maine to tie it again with 26 seconds showing on the clock. Ben Shungu went up for a shot in the closing seconds for the Catamounts that was goaltended by the Black Bears with only four seconds left. Maine inbounded the ball and called timeout to advance it to the frontcourt. The final chance came from Fleming who attempted a fade away in the right corner for three to win it, but it came up short as the buzzer sounded.
Davis added seven rebounds to his point total in the Vermont win. Lamb and Stef Smith both added 10 points a piece. Fleming led Maine in the loss with 13 points and six rebounds. Nedeljko Prijovic had 11 points and five rebounds. Precious Okoh also got into double figures with 10 points. The Black Bears drop to 6-14, 2-4 in America East and will visit UMBC on Saturday.
