Box Score DARTMOUTH, Mass. – Senior guard Trachone Preston (Enfield) was 11-of-11 from the foul line en route to a game-high 25 points and the Eastern Connecticut State University men's basketball team held the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth without a field goal and just two free throws over the final six minutes in an 80-72 Little East Conference victory Wednesday night at the Tripp Athletic Center.
Trailing by one point with just under six minutes left, Eastern (10-5, 4-0 Little East) outscored UMass Dartmouth (8-6, 1-3 LEC) 11-2 the rest of the way to snap the Corsair's three-game winning streak and defeat UMD for the 13th consecutive time.
Junior forward Hugh Lindo (Enfield) gave Eastern the lead for good, 71-70, with two free throws and moments later stole the ball and drove in for a layup to make it 73-70. With the Warriors up by one, Lindo put back his own missed shot and completed a three-point play with a free throw with 37 seconds left to make it 76-72. Preston sank four free throws – the final two coming when UMD was whistled for a technical foul – with 3.2 seconds left to seal the victory.
UMass Dartmouth led through much of the first half before Eastern cut the gap to one, 40-39, at halftime. The Warriors used an early surge to move out to a six-point, 52-46 lead before the hosts used an 11-2 scoring run for a three-point, 57-54 lead with 13 minutes left. Eastern fell four points back twice over the next seven minutes before sophomore guard Collin Jordan (Cheshire) turned a UMD turnover into a driving layup, and sophomore guard Tarchee Brown (Rockville) drained a three-pointer to put the Warriors back on top, 69-68. Lindo's two free throws with five minutes left pushed Eastern back into the lead and sparked the final decisive 11-2 run.
Preston, Lindo and Brown combined for all but 18 of Eastern's points. Lindo had his eighth double-double (fifth straight) of the year with a career-high 19 points (7-of-11 FG) and season-tying 15 rebounds and Brown tossed in 18 points (13 in the second half). Preston led all Eastern players with six assists and Brown had four.
As a team, the Warriors turned the ball over only seven times – their second-lowest total of the year and leading to only ten UMD points – and converted 22 of 25 free throws.
Midway through the second half, 6-foot-2 inch senior guard Jordan Rezendes of UMD recorded his 1,000th career point in only his 40th career game. Ranked third nationally in scoring (just under 30 a game) and third in three-pointers per game (4.69), last year's LEC Player-of-the-Year totaled 22 points on 7-of-24 shooting, 2-of-11 from three-point range.
Eastern hosts UMass Boston Saturday at 3 p.m. in a Little East Conference game.
