Auburn, ME – The CMCC men's basketball team rallied from down 17 points in the second half to close within one, but fell in their season opener to the Crandall University Chargers, 81-76 on Saturday night at home. Senior Wyatt Hathaway led the Mustangs with 12 points and four players finished in double figures in the loss.
Crandall University, out of the CCAA in Canada, ventured down from Moncton, New Brunswick for the contest. The October 4th game was the earliest start to the season in CMCC men's basketball program history.
"We've only had two weeks of practice, so I wanted to just let them go, let them play and see what happened," said head coach Dave Gonyea. "Give a lot of credit to Crandall. They were more disciplined than we were, and down the stretch hit shots that we didn't"
Both teams started tentatively with only a combined nine points scored through the game's first six minutes. Dave Hutton helped push the visitors ahead with some timely lay-ups, before buckets from E.J. Pemberton and J.T. Pound gave the Mustangs a 17-16 lead. The Chargers would finish the half stronger though and took a 32-25 lead into the locker room.
That momentum carried into the second half as well with Crandall building a 58-41 lead. A three-pointer from Hutton with 12:30 remaining being the final straw for head coach Dave Gonyea who called a full timeout.
Central Maine responded after that. The young team, which has just three returners from a year ago, slowly gained some momentum. Three pointers from Will Duke, Riley Bowen, and Pound cut the deficit down to 11. Wyatt Hathaway made it a two possession game when his triple dropped with 8:28 remaining to make it 64-58.
The Mustangs continued to live and die from outside as the game went into its later stages. Da'Vohn Jonas-Reid drained a three and Pemberton followed suit 25 seconds later to make it a one-point margin at 69-68 with still four minutes to play.
But that was as close as CMCC would get. The Chargers turned possessions into points and kept the Mustangs at bay. In the final minute, the visitors managed to snag three offensive rebounds off missed free throws to deny Central Maine the possessions it needed to try and force a comeback. Luca Del Bosco dropped a lay-up through with 0.1 seconds left for the 81-76 final score line.
Duke (11), Pound (10), and Rocco Chang (10) were the other players to reach double digits in scoring for Central Maine besides Hathaway. Alexandre Brigitte grabbed nine rebounds in just 16 minutes worth of work to lead CMCC on the glass. Del Bosco had a game-high 20 points for the visitors, with his last-second shot putting him one ahead of Hutton's 19 point performance.
Crandall is the first of four Canadian teams for CMCC on the schedule to begin the season. This weekend the Mustangs head to New Brunswick for three games in three days. They start on Friday night against the University of New Brunswick-Saint John before facing St. Thomas University on Saturday and Sunday.
