NEC Men's Basketball Drops Conference Battle With Lyndon State

December 1, 2012

HENNIKER, N.H. – Lyndon State College men’s basketball senior forward Jason Gray (East Thetford, Vt.) recorded is 1,000 career point finishing with a game-high 22 points leading the Hornets past the New England College Pilgrims 86-77 Saturday afternoon.
With the win the Hornets improve to 2-2 overall and 2-0 in North Atlantic Conference (NAC) play.  The Pilgrims are still in search of their first win of the season falling to 0-6 overall and 0-2 in the NAC.
The two teams would battle back-and-forth through the entire first half which would see six ties and two lead changes. The Pilgrims would hit a jumper with 30 second remaining giving NEC the 33-31 advantage heading into halftime.

NEC would come out of the second half and build their largest lead of the game up 13 points just six minutes into the half.  Lyndon would respond as the Hornets with a 12-4 run cutting the lead to just two points trailing 61-52 midway through the half.

Lyndon would grab their first lead of the half with six minutes on the clock and would never relinquish it closing out the second half shooting an impressive 58% from beyond three point range and 75% from the foul line. 
Gray would lead all rebounders as well finishing with nine, while Devyn Baranauskas (Waterbury, Conn.) would finish with 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting. Lyndon’s Howard Lyles (Washington, D.C) chipped in 16 points and Sam Coachman (Radcliff, Ky.) finished with 14 for the Hornets.
Leading the way for NEC was Jonathan Byrnes (Bethel, Conn.) who finished with a team-high 19 points and seven rebounds.  NEC’s Ryan Schmitz (Reading, Calif.) and Abdirahman Mohamed (Biddeford, Maine) each chipped in 14 points for the Pilgrims.

NEC returns to action on Monday, Dec. 3 when they travel to take on non-conference opponent Suffolk University.  Lyndon State will hit the court on Saturday, Dec. 8 when they host in-state conference foe Johnson State College.

Scoring by Half                  1      2    Total
Lyndon State College        31    55      86
New England College        33    44      77