Owls handle Southern Maine in LEC opener

EAGLE TIMES STAFF
KEENE, NH — Fifth year center Jeff Hunter moved up to fifth on the Keene State College men’s basketball scoring list and second on the all-time rebounds list after posting his 30th double-double in the last 35 games dating to last season as the Owls had little trouble dispatching the University of Southern Maine 94-80 in the Little East Conference opener for both teams at Spaulding Gymnasium Saturday afternoon.

Playing at home for the first time in three weeks, the Owls raced out to an 8-2 lead in the opening 1:29 and kept pushing from there as they won for the fifth straight time. Leading 24-18 with 10:30 to go in the first half, Spencer Aronson and Alonzo Linton acted as a big spark off the bench, drilling three treys in 52 seconds to rapidly push the lead to 15, and it mostly kept growing from there. KSC carried a 53-35 advantage to the locker room, and then burst out of the gates with a pair of Hunter buckets including a dunk in the opening minute-plus of the second half as part of an 11-2 surge that gave them a 64-37 lead with 17:17 to go. A minute later, Tahmeen Dupree and Octavio Brito connected from distance on consecutive possessions to push the lead to 30, and KSC cruised, shooting 53 percent as a team and 12-for-27 from 3-point range. Southern Maine got hot late to trim the deficit to as little as 14 (with 30 seconds left) and wound-up shooting 51 percent themselves (58 percent in the final 20 minutes) while turning the ball over just eight times but was decimated on the glass 43-18.

Brito and Hunter were dominant on the afternoon, with neither playing more than 28 minutes. They combined for 45 points on 18-for-29 shooting with Brito making 5-of-9 from long range, grabbed a combined 23 rebounds, and had eight of KSC’s 15 assists as a team. Brito had five helpers without a turnover, and Hunter had a pair of blocks. Aronson was the Owls third double-figure scorer, chipping in 11 (4-9 FG, 3-8 3-PT) and two assists. Mason Jean Baptiste made 2-of-3 from deep and scored 6 points in only 16 minutes, as with a comfortable lead in the second half, KSC Coach David Hastings likely tried to limit minutes as his team began a stretch of four games in seven days prior to the holiday break.

Home dominance for the Owls was not new, particularly coming off a 16-0 conference mark a season ago, one that included a 93-68 victory over the Huskies, who eventually finished third in the league standings but were upset in the quarterfinals by No. 6 seed University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. USM never led that day and trailed 56-31 at halftime — and never led on this day either, as KSC broke away from a 16-13 game with a 17-5 burst that included the aforementioned three-point shooting barrage from Aronson and Linton. Brito also drained a pair during that surge, and Mike Carothers sliced and diced USM’s defense twice for layups at the rim to make it 24-16 with 11:36 left in the opening half. After trailing by 18 (44-26), the Huskies did rattle off seven in a row (all from Tommy Whelan) to get within 11, but that is as close as they would get the rest of the afternoon. A putback bucket by Brito after an offensive board (one of KSC’s 14 while USM had only one on the afternoon) with 1:17 to go until the break made it 49-33, and Hunter’s dunk as the clock ticked under 5 seconds provided an exclamation point and pushed the lead back to 18 again.

Less than 3 minutes out of the locker room, the Owls were humming and quickly pushed the lead to 27 (64-37), with Brito connecting from distance on one trip and then putting home another second-chance basket on the next. Their largest lead of 70-40 came at the 15:40 mark, and Wesley Odiase’s offensive board and putback with 12:14 to go made it 74-46. A 19-6 run by Southern Maine over the next 4 minutes helped cut the deficit in half, but buckets from Hunter and Ryan Brooks (his first career points in his first collegiate appearance), and a triple from Aronson in a 1:22 span made it 87-65 with 4:09 left. Brito’s flush with 2:39 on the clock made it 92-71 before the Huskies closed on a 9-2 run to set the final margin.

Whelan finished with a team-best 17 points on 7-of-14 shooting for Southern Maine. Chance Dixon (7-15 FG) and Cody Hawes (7-16 FG) each scored 15, with Hawes also adding six assists, but the duo was held to just 2-of-10 from three-point range.

Brito was 9-for-16 from the floor for KSC and 5-for-9 from three. Hunter made 9-of-13 shots from the field, 4-of-5 from the foul line, grabbed 11 boards (three offensive), and added three assists and two blocks.