Dec. 5, 2009
Box Score
Led by a career-best 32 point performance by Kyle Caiola (Parma, OH), UMass Lowell earned a hard-fought 88-77 victory over Saint Anselm in Northeast-10 action at home on Saturday afternoon.
Bouncing back from a pair of losses at Merrimack and Bentley, the UMass Lowell offense came alive for an 88-point outing. With the victory, the River Hawks improve to 5-2 overall with a 3-2 mark in conference play. Saint Anselm evens its record to 3-3 on the year, 2-3 in NE-10 action.
“That was an old-fashioned, Saturday afternoon conference battle,” head coach Greg Herenda said. “I’m so proud of our kids for playing 40 minutes and beating a very good St. Anselm basketball team.”
Caiola had 17 points in the first half and smashed his previous record of 26 points by adding 15 in the second. He also dished six rebounds and went 10 for 18 from the floor, including three three-pointers.
Also scoring in double digits for the River Hawks was guard Kevin Carr (Lancaster, OH), who knocked down five three-pointers in the first half and finished the game with 17 points.
“Obviously the combination of [Caiola] and [Carr] was huge,” Herenda said. “[Caiola] scored the ball very well all night and when [St. Anselm] guarded him tough, he found [Carr] and got him some great looks.”
Also coming up big for UMass Lowell was Ali Kanaan (Montreal, Que.) tallied 10 points and four boards, assisting twice, as well. Senior Craig Heatherly (Mishawawka, IN) and rookie Romeo Diaz (Methuen, MA) grabbed a team-best six boards, while Heatherly also added eight points and Diaz notched four in the victory.
The River Hawks enjoyed their largest lead with just under six minutes remaining in the first half, after a Carr jumper made it a 39-19 game. The Hawks chipped away, though, going on an 8-0 run and eventually minimizing the lead to just 10 at the half.
The tilt got increasingly closer into the second as Saint Anselm narrowed the game to a four-point contest (80-76) with 0:59 left in regulation, thanks to a Pat Luptowski (Keene, NH) three-pointer as the clock wound down. Thanks to a string of fouls and the River Hawks making each of their final eight free throws in the last minute, they were able to walk away with the 11-point victory.
St. Anselm was led by Thomas Baudinet’s (Watertown, CT) 25 point performance. Three other Hawks scored in double digits, including Quinn Woodhouse (Auburn, ME), who had 11 points and grabbed a team-best eight rebounds in the contest.
UMass Lowell shot 46.8% from the floor including 50% from behind the arc, holding Saint Anselm to 34.5% overall and 28.6% from three-point range. The Hawks had the slight advantage on the boards, outrebounding UMass Lowell 41-37.
“To score 88 points after being stopped [by Bentley and Merrimack] and averaging less than 60 over our last three games was big,” Herenda said. “We needed to jumpstart our offense and our guys picked the right time to do it.”
The River Hawks look to win their fifth game at home this season, as they host Franklin Pierce on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in Costello Athletic Center for their final tilt before the holiday break.
