Men's Basketball Advances to Worcester County Championship

Worcester State 87, Nichols 76

Box Score

Worcester, MA --- Senior Maurice Horton (Detroit, MI/Burncoat) notched his 19th career double-double with 25 points and 15 rebounds to help propel Worcester State to a season-opening 87-76 victory over Nichols in the second semifinal of the Worcester County Classic hosted by WPI.

The Lancers advance to the championship game to face off against WPI tomorrow at 7:30 while the Bison will play Becker in the consolation bracket at 5:30. The Engineers defeated the Hawks 85-80 in the first semifinal earlier this evening.

WSC was also led by junior Ryan Testagrossa (Athol, MA) who recorded 14 points while freshman Tim Henault (Lunenburg, MA) tacked on 13 points. Senior Pat Hamilton (Templeton, MA) had a great all-around game with 11 points, a team-best four steals to go along with four caroms.

Nichols was paced by senior Bryan Riley (W. Boylston, MA) who poured in a team-best 21 points with five assists as he went 13-for-15 from the charity stripe. Classmate Chris Paquin (Barre, MA) registered 15 points and eight rebounds while fellow senior Ryan Wilcox (W. Granby, CT) chipped in with 14 points for the Bison.

Worcester State started with a quick 13-6 lead to open up the first 4 1/2 minutes of play, but Nichols used a full-court zone press to pressure the Lancers and go on a 10-2 run and take a 16-15 edge at 12:22.

Over the next two minutes there were a pair of ties and two lead changes before Paquin and Justin Aldrich (Douglas, MA) jacked consecutive three-pointers to help Nichols go up 25-19 with nine minutes left in the first half.

WSC inched their way back to within one point with 6:22 left (27-26), but the Bison held the Lancers scoreless for the next 3 1/2 minutes of play to open up their largest lead, 36-27, on a trey by Justin Kuntz (Wallingford, CT) at 2:40.

The Blue and Gold responded with a 9-0 run to close out the period as Horton added an exclamation point with a three-point buzzer-beater, following a Lancer timeout to tie up the game at 36-36 at the intermission.

In the first stanza, Worcester State scored 24 of their 36 points in the paint and they used eight offensive boards to score 10 second chance baskets. Nichols shot 10-for-18 from the field (56.6 %) and went 6-for-9 from beyond the arc.

The Lancers opened up the first six minutes of the second period outscoring Nichols 21-6 as they took a 57-42 lead with 16:11 left in the contest.

Both squads continued to score over the next eight minutes of play, but WSC stayed on top as they extended their largest advantage (69-52).

It was at that point that Nichols went on a 20-6 spurt over a stretch of five minutes to close the gap to 75-66 with 3:40 left in the game.

After the two teams committed three straight turnovers over the next 50 seconds, WSC took control of the game as they canned three free throws to bring the lead back up to 10 at 2:06 (78-68).

Nichols got no closer than eight as the Lancers converted 9-of-12 shots from the charity stripe to ice the game and preserve the edge in the waning seconds of the game.

The two teams were even in points off of turnovers (25-25) while Worcester State dominated the paint (42-24) and the glass (38-27) including a 14-4 edge on offensive rebounds.