Box Score

Down eight points with a few ticks over seven minutes in the game, the UMass Lowell men's basketball team staged a comeback to tie the game at the end of regulation and ultimately finished off the job in overtime to win its third consecutive game.
 
The River Hawks (4-11, 3-1 America East) stayed poised to beat Albany (8-9, 2-2 America East), last years conference champion 70-66 in an overtime thriller. Last week's conference Player of the Week, senior guard Akeem Williams (Brockton, MA) continued his recent surge scoring a game-high 20 points while adding eight assists.
 
"I'm not just happy for the win, but for the way we won," said Head Coach Pat Duquette. "I thought it was a really gut-wrenching, tough, hard played game against a tough and physical Albany team and our guys responded."
 
Williams and his fellow seniors Antonio Bivins (Miami, FL) and Kerry Weldon (New York, N.Y.) played major roles also with Bivins scoring the tying bucket to send the game into an extra period while Weldon made key free throws and made timely defensive plays.
 
With the River Hawks down four and 22 seconds left, Weldon caught a pass from Chad Holley Weldon (New York, N.Y.)  on the baseline, converted the basket and made the free throw to cut the deficit to a point.
 
Then with just seven seconds on the clock and the Great Danes clinging to a two point lead Williams drove the lane and found a cutting Bivins who converted the layup to knot the game at 59. Weldon scored six of his season-high 15 points in the extra period and added three blocks, none timelier than him sending back Albany guard Sam Rowley's layup attempt with just over a minute in overtime.
 
The River Hawks took a 10-8 lead with 15:13 left in the first half following one of Tyler Livingston's (Hudson, N.H.) two made 3-pointers but would fight an uphill battle from there, not regaining the lead until Weldon tipped in a missed layup from Williams in overtime.
 
Williams, the reigning conference Player of the Week had his third consecutive game scoring 18 or more points going 6 of 15 from the field and 4 of 8 from long-range. The only blemish in the performance was the end of his consecutive free throw streak that came to an end at 34 and dated back to November 26, when the River Hawks played at Cincinnati.
 
Weldon also set a new season-high for free throws made and attempted going 5-for-9 from the charity stripe.
 
The team matched their second-lowest turnover total of the year only giving up the ball eight times while dishing out 15 assists while the Great Danes only managed 12 assists on 15 turnovers.
 
The team will pack up for the weekend when they travel to Stony Brook on Saturday before taking on Hartford on Monday.