SMCC Conquers Knights In Battle of The YSCC Unbeatens

First-year Zachary Mickle.
First-year Zachary Mickle.

SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine—The Southern Maine Community College (SMCC) men's basketball team played to a 76-65 victory over the Yankee Small College Conference (YSCC) first place Knights from Vermont Technical College (VTC) at The HUB on Saturday, Nov. 16.

The SeaWolves found themselves in a hole 20-9 to begin the contest before climbing back to even the score at 32-32 on a made three by sophomore captain Ian Regan (Old Orchard Beach, Maine) with 3:53 left in the first. First-year Clay Hardy (Saginaw, Mich.) scored the final five points of the half to put the home team ahead 43-36.

SMCC would maintain its lead for the remaining 20 minutes at a safe distance that featured 11 points from Hardy and eight courtesy of first-year Pedro Fonseca (Portland, Maine).

VTC's Jeremiah Shaw kept pace with his conference-leading scoring average posting 21 on 15 shot attempts. Chance Cole went for 18 points and eight rebounds.

The SeaWolves capitalized on points-off-turnovers with 19 and made use of 24 bench points. Hardy led all scorers with 24 points—adding 10 rebounds and two steals. Fonseca threw in 17 points and Regan totaled 12 on 5-8 shooting.

In a post-game interview, Head Coach Matt Richards commented, "This was a nice result to get in front of our home crowd—proving to our guys that we can play with any team on our floor. We used fresh bodies to run an offense designed to cause fatigue for the opposition on the defensive end and did well to make stops down the stretch to keep a distance that proved insurmountable by Vermont Tech."

SMCC improves to 6-1 overall, and remains the last undefeated team in conference play at 3-0. VTC now stands 4-2 overall, 3-1 YSCC.

The SeaWolves continue their conference schedule when they bus up to the Augusta Civic Center to play the Moose from the University of Maine at Augusta on Tuesday, Nov. 19. Tip-off is set for 8 p.m. LIVE STATS.

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