CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – After holding a lead for the majority of the first 28 minutes of play, the Lynx could not hang on as Mitchell College outscored Lesley 49-37 in the second half to earn a 72-66 comeback victory in New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) play tonight at Buckingham, Browne, & Nichols. With the win, the Mariners get over .500, moving to 10-9 on the year and 6-5 in the conference while the Lynx, fighting for a playoff spot, fall to 6-13 overall and 4-6 in the NECC.
Junior Joshua Ford (Jersey City, N.J.) paced Mitchell with 24 points on 8-of-14 shooting while grabbing a team-high seven rebounds. Ford went 8-of-10 from the charity stripe and swiped a game-high five steals. Freshman forward Devonta Mosley (Gainesville, Fla.) and junior forward Anthony Epps (Norwalk, Conn.) were each in double-figures as well, posting 12 and 10 points respectively.
The Lynx had three players in double-figure. Sophomore guard Justin Rosa (East Brunswick, N.J.) was 6-of-11 from the floor for a team-high 16 points while freshman point guard Anthony Mattocks (Sarasota, Fla.) knocked down three from deep on his way to 15 points. Classmate Brian Gladowski (Roseville, Calif.) chipped in with 11 points off the bench.
The Lynx buried their first four field goals of the game from three-point range, giving them a 12-6 lead with 14:14 to go in the opening half. Mattocks and Rosa opened up the scoring before junior Mike Kaufman (Boca Raton, Fla.) knocked down two consecutive threes, both off of feeds from Mattocks.
With 6:16 left in the half, a Mosley jumper cut the Lynx lead down to one, 18-17. Rosa and Gladowski then combined for seven unanswered points to push the lead back to eight and went into halftime leading 29-23.
Lesley shot 42% from the field, including going 5-of-8 from three-point range, in the first twenty minutes while holding the Mariners to just 1-of-7 from deep and 31% from the floor.
In the second half, the Mariners opened up with a 16-10 run to notch the score up at 39-39. The balanced attack was led by five points apiece from Epps and junior guard Alex Del Rio Jr. (New Britain, Conn.) and four from Ford.
Mitchell took their first lead since the opening minutes of the game on a thunderous one-handed slam by Ford in the open court, giving them a 41-39 advantage.
With 9:54 left to play and the Lynx trailing by one, the Mariners opened it up with a 14-3 spurt to give to cushion their lead to 12 points, 63-51. Ford and Epps paced the run again as they combined for nine of the 14 points.
Over the next three minutes, the Lynx climbed back in as they scored eight straight capped off by a Matt Gibson (Quincy, Mass.) three-pointer, and trailed by just four with 2:00 to go. Gibson would hit another three with just thirteen seconds left to get it within two, but it was not enough as the Mariners were able to hang on.
Mitchell was clutch from the free throw line down the stretch as they hit 7-of-8 to cap the win.
The Lynx return to the court on Saturday, February 2nd when they travel to Becker College for a 1:00p start while Mitchell travels to Elms College for a 2:00p tip-off, also on Saturday.
