Box Score WILLIMANTIC, Conn. – The Amherst College men's basketball team more than doubled its shooting percentage in the second half after a 26.5 showing through the first 20 minutes on the way to a 59-51 victory over Eastern Connecticut State University in a battle of nationally-ranked teams Tuesday evening at Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium.
At right: Eastern defenders (from left) Trachone Preston, Kevin Leumene and Tarchee Brown are in a footrace with Amherst's Jayde Dawson in the second half of Tuesday's 59-51 loss.
Ranked 18th nationally, Amherst (8-2) shot 54.5 percent in the second half, with 6-foot-5 inch freshman guard Johnny McCarthy and 6-foot-8 inch sophomore forward David George combining for 19 of the Jeffs' 36 second-half points. No. 21 Eastern (10-3), which had a 13-game regular-season home winning streak stopped, missed its first 12 three-point field goal attempts and 17 of 19 from behind the arc in the game.
Down by 12 with 1:31 left, Eastern made a modest 7-1 run capped by freshman guard Tarchee Brown's (Rockville) driving layup to pull to within six points with 14 seconds left. Brown was fouled on the play but missed the free throw attempt and McCarthy sank two free throws with 12.9 seconds to seal Amherst's fourth road win this year in as many contests.
With injury and sickness sidelining two starting inside players, Eastern received only two points off the bench in a game dominated by each team's starting five. Despite starting two players standing 6-foot-8, Amherst was outrebounded by 12 by undersized Eastern. Six-foot-four inch sophomore forward Hugh Lindo (Enfield) led all players in the game with a season-high 21 rebounds (two shy of his career high).
Neither team led by more than four points in a first half where aggressive defense played a role as the teams combined to shoot less than 30 percent. Leading by only one at halftime, Amherst ripped off nine straight points to break the final tie and move out to a nine-point, 37-28 lead four minutes into action. The visitors got scoring from four different players in that early run, connecting on three consecutive shots and two free throws while Eastern missed four in a row and turned the ball over once on five possessions in those minutes.
George and 6-foot-8 inch sophomore forward Jacob Nabatoff combined to grab 21 of Amherst's 36 rebounds in the game. McCarthy led his team with 15 points and four assists, with George totaling 13 points and 11 assists, freshman guard Jayde Dawson 11 points. Nabatoff missed 11 of 13 field goal attempts but snared ten rebounds.
Brown led Eastern with 19 points and grabbed six rebounds. In addition to his rebound total, Lindo scored eight points, handed out five assists and blocked four shots (giving him 29 in 13 games). Junior guard Trachone Preston (Enfield), averaging a team-leading 20.2 points per game, was limited to 11 points on 5-for-20 field goal shooting, but contributed five rebounds and three assists.Defensively, Preston gave away eight inches to McCarthy, but hurried him into missing eight of 14 shots and scoring only 15 points in 38 minutes.
Eastern returns to Little East Conference action Saturday at the University of Massachusetts Boston at 3 p.m.
