Box Score

CASTLETON, Vt.—  It may not have been as convincing as its 35-point win over VTSU Castleton exactly one month, but it surely had greater implications Saturday when the Eastern Connecticut State University men's basketball team moved into a share of fifth place in the Little East Conference standings on the strength of a 78-62 victory over the Spartans at Glenbrook Gymnasium.
 
Coupled with the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's 89-80 home loss to the University of Southern Maine Saturday, Eastern's (15-8, 7-7 LEC) fourth straight win – its longest since opening the season at 9-1 – breaks a two-way tie for sixth place with the Corsairs and moves the Warriors into a tie for fifth place with idle Rhode Island College (11-12, 7-7 LEC).
 
The top six teams in the final LEC standings qualify for the conference playoffs which begin with first-round games a week from Tuesday at the sites of the higher seeds. The Warriors close out the regular season at home, hosting Keene State College (13-10, 9-5 LEC) Wednesday at 7 p.m. and  Plymouth State University (6-17, 2-12 LEC)
 
Trailing by seven points with four minutes left Saturday, Keene rallied to snap Western Connecticut's (17-6, 10-4 LEC) six-game winning streak and retain sole possession of fourth place and remain two games ahead of the Warriors with an 84-80 victory. The Western loss, coupled with conference-leader University of Massachusetts Boston's 78-70 win at Plymouth State University, gives UMB no worse than a share of the LEC regular-season title with Western.
 
Against Castleton (6-17, 1-13), which was eliminated from LEC tournament contention last week, Eastern outscored the Spartans by 12 in the second half to pull away from a four-point halftime lead.  In the second half, Eastern shot 58 percent form the floor (4-of-10 from "three"), outrebounded the Spartans by 14 and held the hosts to 39 percent shooting
 
Primarily through the efforts of junior forwards Julian Sanchez (Willimantic) and Drew Soltis (Bridgeport), the Warriors were able to contain Castleton scoring and rebounding leader Will Radcliff in the second half. After the 6-foot-5 inch, 225 pound senior single-handedly kept his team in contention in the first half, Sanchez and Soltis helped neutralize the LECs second-leading rebounder and fourth-leading scorer in the second half. With 14 points, Radcliff did manage to score nearly half of Castleton's 32 second-half points, but nine of those points were mostly academic when they came in the final four minutes with the Spartans trailing by 19.
 
In the second half, senior guard Dominick Dao (Terryville) led all scorers with 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting (3-of-5 from distance), with Soltis adding 11 points (4-of-5 FG) and six rebounds. Sanchez chipped in eight points and eight rebounds.
 
In the first half, Eastern used a 12-2 run over three-and-a-half minutes to move out to an eight-point lead  before the first media timeout after senior forward Jalen Hamblin (West Hartford) swished a short jumper while falling down, but the Warriors couldn't  protect or maintain that lead. Castleton later answered with a scoring spurt (eight in a row) of its own to take a one-point lead on Radcliff's inside bucket with 2:28 left. The Warriors took a four-point lead into the lockerroom that could have been seven if Dao's three-point attempt at the first-half buzzer had not rimmed out.
 
Radcliff had 12 points and 12 rebounds by the break. His first-half totals were seven more rebounds and only  two less points  than he had in 32 minutes in his team's earlier loss at Eastern at Geissler Gym.
 
Sanchez, the team's season scoring leader who was held scoreless and to just three rebounds in 12 minutes off the bench in Wednesday's 80-56 win at Rhode Island College, submitted his seventh double-double of the year Saturday with 14 points and 12 rebounds in his 23^rd straight game off the bench. Dao led the Warriors with 22 points (9-of-14 FG), with Soltis adding 15 points and eight rebounds and Hamblin 11 points (4-of-5 FG) and six rebounds. Senior point guard Michael Carothers (Queens, NY), who leads the LEC in assists (146) and in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.0) handed out seven assists and turned the ball over only once in 28 minutes. Making his first start of the season in place of junior guard Ray Carter (Springfield, MA) -- who came on to play nine second-half minutes -- junior guard Cedrick Similien (Norwich) had eight points, three rebounds, two steals and an assist without a turnover in 21 minutes.
 
With four three-point field goals, Dao moved to within four of becoming the fifth player in program history (behind current assistant coach Trachone Preston's 201) to reach 200 three-pointers in a career. Dao has 1,277 career points, moving ahead of Alumni Hall of Famer Paul Kaminski (1947-51) Saturday into 17^th place all-time.
 
Radcliff led all players with 26 points and 14 rebounds.
 
During the current four-game winning streak, Dao has averaged 19.8 points and 4.3 rebounds. He is shooting 63 percent from the floor in those four games, including 14-of-28 from distance. Hamblin is averaging 14.8 points (51 percent FG) and 5.5 rebounds, Soltis 14.5 points (61 percent FG) and a team-high 9.3 rebounds and Sanchez 13.0 points (58 percent FG) and 7.0 rebounds. Carothers has averaged 7.8 assists with only seven total turnovers during the win streak.
 
Three of the four wins on Eastern's current four-game win streak have come on the road and have all been decided by double digits. In those four wins, Eastern has averaged 85.5 points and has shot 52 percent from the floor while limiting the opponent to 42 percent shoot from the field with a 28 percent mark from three-point range.