Brandon Murray finished with 12 points and a team-high eight rebounds in NEC's loss to Wentworth on Saturday.
Men's Basketball falls to Wentworth
Wentworth Institute of Technology’s Todd Doyle (Mystic, Conn.) exploded for 30 points helping to lead the Leopards past the New England College Pilgrims 87-79 Saturday afternoon. With the win the Leopards improve to 10-15 overall and 7-6 in conference play. With the loss the Pilgrims end their season with an overall record of 2-22 and 0-13 in the conference.
Wentworth would open the game on an 11-2 run and continue to control much of the offense leading by as many as 15 points midway through the opening half. NEC would respond with an 11-2 run of their own cutting the Wentworth lead to just 20-18 with 8:36 remaining. The Leopards would hold on to the lead throughout the next three minutes but the Pilgrims would hit back-to-back layups at the four minute mark taking their first lead of the afternoon up 28-26. The two teams would battle back-and-forth through the remainder of the half as the two teams would head into halftime knotted at 36-36.
Wentworth would build and early six point lead out of halftime but again NEC would respond charging back to tie the game at 49-49 six minutes into the half. The Leopards would use a 10-0 run grabbing their largest lead of the half up ten points with ten minutes left to play in regulation. The Pilgrims would get within six but that is as close as the Leopard defense would allow them, as Wentworth would shoot a perfect 10-for-10 from the foul line in the final minute to hold on for the 87-79 victory.
In addition to Doyle, Wentworth was led by Matt Abbott (Falmouth, Mass.) who finished with a double-double scoring 13 points and finishing with a game-high 12 rebounds. Wentworth’s Brendan Monteiro (Brockton, Mass.) finished with 16 points and Kevin Wentworth (Ware, Mass.) chipped in 10 points for the Leopards.
Leading the way for NEC was Shane Hennessey (Plymouth, England) and Eric Lenahan (Point Pleasant Beach, N.J.) who each finished with 17 points. NEC’s Rafael Salado (Boston, Mass.) scored 16 points and Brandon Murray (Roxbury, Mass.) scored 12 points and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.
