CAMBRIDGE, MA – Lesley earned its first win in New England Collegiate Conference men's basketball play Thursday night, topping Mitchell 73-61 behind a spark from a pair of freshmen, Christian Fuentes and Kris Bennett.

     Fuentes (Chatsworth, CA/Chaminade) took a liking to his first career start, nailing three straight three-pointers out of the gate to give the Lynx a 15-14 lead at the 13:00 mark. His fourth triple of the half was followed by a John Sanchez (Carson, CA/Saint John Bosco) trey that helped close out a 14-3 Lynx run to close out the half, at which point Lesley led 39-27.

     Bennett (Las Vegas, NV/ Durango) was to the second half what his classmate was to the first, streaking baseline for an alley-oop dunk on a feed from Thorton Paul that put Lesley on top 41-27 out of intermission. Back-to-back jumpers from Mitchell's Tim Quinn (Vernon, CT/Rockville) and Paul Jefferson (Waterbury, CT/Arts Magnet) cut the margin to 10 inside the 18:00 mark.

     Lesley (4-13, 1-6 NECC) responded with a 14-4 run in which six different players scored to go ahead 18 with under 11:00 to play, and with the Lynx up by 15, Bennett delivered the exclamation point to the team's first league win. Off a miss from Jesus Trejo (Metheun, MA/Metheun), the 6-foot-8 freshman ran untouched through the lane for the one-handed put-back dunk, sending the Lynx to victory and capping the team's six-game slide.

     Bennett finished with six points and seven rebounds, while Fuentes scored all of his 12 points on first-half three-pointers, hitting 4-5 in the first and 4-8 overall. Trejo posted a double-double of 14 points and 11 rebounds, while Sanchez scored a team-high 15 points to go along with six assists and six rebounds.

     For Mitchell (1-16, 0-8 NECC), Quinn scored a game-high 17 points and pulled down five boards, and Jefferson added 13 points on 3-7 shooting from distance. Julio Contreras (Boca Raton, FL/West Boca) added team-highs of seven rebounds and four assists.

     Lesley plays host to Elms on Saturday at noon, while Mitchell travels to Wheelock on Saturday at 1 p.m.