NORTHFIELD, Vt. – The Mount Ida College men's basketball team rallied after falling behind by 11 points in the second half on Saturday afternoon, but host Norwich University was able to hold on to hand the Mustangs a 79-77 Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) defeat in the first half of a home and home that will conclude next Wednesday evening at Mount Ida Athletic Center.
Mount Ida sees their two-game conference winning streak snapped as they fall to 10-9 on the year and 6-6 in GNAC play. With the victory, the Cadets improve to 5-13 overall and 2-9 in the league.
Three players scored in double digits for the Mustangs with sophomore guard Jayson Clark (Austin, Texas) leading the team with 19 points. Junior guard Ethan Dujon (Warwick, R.I.) picked up 16 points and a team-best 14 rebounds for a double-double, while classmate Joey DeFillippi (Bristol, Conn.) added 13 points and two assists for Mount Ida.
Sophomore forward Mike Hogervorst (Leiden, Netherlands) scored a team-high 20 points off the bench and pulled down nine rebounds while picking up three assists for the Maroon and Gold. Senior Alex Preckol (Westford, Mass.) added 15 points and a pair of steals, while sophomore guard Zygimantas Sirvydas (Silale, Lithuania) contributed 14 points, three steals, and a pair of assists and rebounds for the Cadets.
Both teams started the first half hot, contesting for the lead early in the stanza. The Cadets and the Mustangs battled their way through the first 20 minutes with both teams leading by no more than five points at one time in the stanza that saw the lead change five times and the score knotted four times. Both teams headed into the locker room with the Mustangs holding onto a two-point lead, 36-34.
The Mustangs made seven three-pointers in the first half to keep themselves in the game, despite being outshot percentage-wise 43.8 to 39.3. Mount Ida would end the game by making 11 three-pointers for the second straight contest, including 4-8 for Clark and 3-7 for DeFillippi.
In the second half, the Cadets utilized a 9-2 run to build up their largest lead of the game, 64-53, with 7:19 remaining in the game. Mount Ida quickly rebounded as they cut the lead down, trailing 77-75 with 34 seconds on the clock.
Mount Ida went into full court pressure mode, hoping to force a Norwich turnover to tie up the contest, but instead the Mustangs were forced to foul to stop the time from burning out.
Sirvydas would hit both shots at the stripe to give Norwich the 79-75 lead, but Clark raced down the court for a layup and got fouled by Hogervorst, giving him a chance to cut the deficit to a point.
Clark missed the free throw attempt but would come up with the rebound with 17 ticks on the board as the Mustangs scrambled before feeding the ball to Defillippi, who pulled the trigger from beyond the arc, only to watch the ball clang off the backboards and into Hogervort's hands for the defensive rebound to secure Norwich's victory.
Sophomore Brendan Cunningham (Quincy, Mass.) helped the Mustangs bench outscore the Norwich reserves with 7 points off the pine, while Pat McKearney (Avon, Conn.) added eight points on 4-9 shooting and five rebounds, where Mount Ida edged Norwich 36-32.
Norwich shot 51.7 percent from the floor to Mount Ida's 43.1 percent for the game. The Cadets recorded 12 steals in the game, led by three from Sirvydas.
The teams will get together for their next game in Newton, a with a 6:00 pm tip-off scheduled for next Wednesday night.