Mountaineers Slide Past Men's Basketball, 76-69, in ECAC Semifinal

BANGOR, Maine—The Southern Vermont College Mountaineers used a 17-7 run midway through the second half to down the Anna Maria College AMCATS 76-69 in Saturday's ECAC New England Men's Basketball Semifinal at Husson University.

The Mountaineers improve to 24-4 while Anna Maria completes its season with a 14-13 record.

Anna Maria was led by junior Patrick Bradanese (Billerica, Mass.) with 22 points, while graduate student Quantez Franklin (South Yarmouth, Mass.) tallied 18 points and a team-high eight rebounds in his final game as an AMCAT.

Fellow senior Michael Gorman (Methuen, Mass.) dished out eight assists and scored nine points in his final game at Anna Maria.

Southern Vermont took an early 8-0 lead, but the AMCATS responded with an 11-2 run. Neither team led by more than four points over the next 10 minutes and the AMCATS held the lead at halftime with a one-point, 25-24 edge.

The second half continued in similar fashion until the under-10 mark when the Mountaineers were able to string together a few scoring plays to take a 57-50 lead with 7:16 left to play. Two minutes later, Southern Vermont still held a nine-point advantage, which they extended to a double-digit lead at the 4:24 mark.

With two minutes left to play, Anna Maria sparked a 9-3 run to cut their deficit to seven points, but it would prove to be as close as they could get as time expired.

The Mountaineers shot 50.6 percent for the contest while the AMCATS shot 46.9 percent. Southern Vermont went a crucial 14-22 from the charity stripe while Anna Maria was 3-9.The Mountaineers held a 39-30 rebounding edge.

William Bromirski led Southern Vermont with 22 points while Deshawn Hamlet had 19 points and six boards. Dolapo Olugbile added 12 points and eight boards.

Southern Vermont will play Fitchburg St. for the ECAC New England Championship tomorrow at 1 p.m. at Newman Gymnasium.