Men’s basketball wins fourth straight, finding groove, obliterates Assumption

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Crier\Sarah Poolman

Men’s basketball running an offensive play in a victory against Bentley Nov. 30.

Glenn Krzeminski, Sports Editor

The Saint Anselm men’s basketball is currently riding a four game winning streak with victories against Saint Mike’s, Bentley, and Merrimack and Assumption. The Hawks are 4-2 to begin the 2016-2017 season so far.

Head Coach Keith Dickson in his 31st season on this year’s team: “Our margin of error is a little bit smaller this year just because we weren’t able to fill in, those two guys, (Harrison Taggart and Tim Guers) are going to have to carry a scoring load.”

On Nov. 22 Saint A’s picked up its first win of the year in a conference bout up in Colchester, VT on the campus of Saint Michael’s in a 104-87.

Sophomore Tim Guers had a career high in points. Guers had 30 points on 11 of 15 shooting from the floor adding 8 assists as well.  Ball had an all-around strong game posting 20 points to go along with 7 rebounds, 4 steals, and 2 blocks.

The Hawks shot a whopping 61 % from the floor and put up 52 points in each half. Offense was a little hard to come by for Saint A’s in in its first two contests where the team averaged only 77 per game.

On the last day before the calendar turned over to December, Nov. 30 Saint A’s played another NE-10 rival in Bentley in the friendly confines of Stoutenburgh Gymnasium.

The Falcons and the Hawks battled throughout trading buckets from start to finish. After the first 20 minutes the score read 40-39 Saint A’s.

“We fought our way to a tough victory against Bentley and played well enough to win” Dickson says. “Chris Braley had a great game and his teammates consistently found his post mismatches and he took full advantage. Grant Mackay also gave us another solid effort in his 20 minutes off the bench with 6 points and 7 rebounds.”

Seniors Chris Braley and Harrison Taggart lead the way for the Hawks each with double-doubles. Braley had 26 points and 12 boards with Taggart having 19 points and 10 boards respectively.

The game was tied at 58 with 13:14 remaining in the game with the back-and-forth play continuing. Saint A’ answered with a 12-4 run over the next four minutes to grab 70-62 advantage.

Saint A’s led for the rest of the game. With three seconds left Bentley came within a three pointer at 89-86. But, Braley put the contest away after knocking down a pair of free throws.

The final score was 91-86 in favor of Saint A’s. This got the Hawk to 2-2 overall and left Bentley at 4-3 overall and 2-2 in league play.

Three days later on Dec. 3 the Hawks hosted Merrimack for their fifth straight NE-10 game to start the season.

The conference tilt was completely one sided as the Hawks dominated the Warriors in an 88-59 rout. Cody Ball matched a career high in the blowout with 22 points giving Saint A’s its third win in a row.

Taggart was named NE-10 Player of the Week after the team’s two big conference victories against Bentley and Merrimack. The Hawks out rebounded Merrimack 42-25 and held the assist advantage 23-12 in the game.

Dickson told the Crier, “The win against Merrimack was important because we faced a zone defense for the first time all year and did a decent job attacking it. Although we turned the ball over too many times, we also broke them down in a lot of different ways. I was really pleased with our defense as we held them to 59 points and 39% field goal shooting. Cody Ball played a terrific game and continues his early season strong play.”

Merrimack fell to 6-2 overall and dropped its first conference game of the year.  Saint A’s on the other hand improved to 3-2 and 2-2 in the NE-10.

The Hawks destroyed Assumption 105-62 on Dec. 7 in their most recent game.