LOWELL, Mass. – Junior Angel Montas Jr. (La Romana, D.R.) totaled a career-high 30 points to propel the UMass Lowell men's basketball team (9-14, 4-4 AE) to a 91-77 victory against Maine (5-18, 3-5 AE) on Saturday afternoon in front of a sold-out crowd at Kennedy Family Athletic Complex.
 
"It's great to get back on the winning track," said Head Coach Pat Duquette. "Feels like a long time since we got one even though I thought we were close in one or two of the games we lost and that's the way the season is going to go. There are ebbs and flows, and ups and downs, so you just have to play that out, play the long game and keep plugging away and I think we did that. Maine didn't go away. They kept coming back and did a good job mixing up their defenses to keep us off-balance a little bit. I'm happy for our guys. I thought it was a good team effort and a lot of guys contributed."
 
Montas Jr. was joined in double figures by three teammates. Freshman JJ Massaquoi (Prince George's County, Md.) tallied 19 points, while junior Darrel Yepdo (Dracut, Mass.) added 17 points and junior Xavier Spencer (Calgary, Alberta) finished with 15 points. Junior Shawn Simmons II (Philadelphia, Pa.) and freshman Victor Okojie (Castlebar, Ireland) paced the team on the glass with nine rebounds each. As a team, the River Hawks outrebounded the opposition, 46-11, and shot 58% from the field.
 
Although the visitors led by as many as five in the opening minutes, Simmons II sparked a 12-0 River Hawk run that included six points from Montas Jr. to put the home side on top, 18-11, with 13:17 remaining in the first half. Maine was quickly back within two possessions before Yepdo knocked down a three from the wing and Montas Jr. fought to the hoop for two to stretch the margin to 25-15 at 10:36.
 
In the following minutes, layups from Massaquoi would bookend an and-1 from Yepdo to give the River Hawks their largest lead yet, 32-18, with 7:49 left in the first. The Black Bears responded with a quick 6-2 spurt, but Yepdo followed with his second triple of the half to maintain the double-digit edge, 37-24, at 4:28. Maine then tallied the next seven points, but UMass Lowell finished the period with six in a row, including a second-chance jumper from Okojie just before the buzzer to take a 43-31 edge at the break.
 
Yepdo quickly sunk the first basket of the second half, but Maine used 11 of the next 15 points to cut the difference to 49-42 with 16:56 still to play. However, in the next minute, Montas Jr. and Spencer both drained threes to ignite a 16-3 run that featured seven straight points from Massaquoi to pull away, 65-45, at 13:46.
 
The back-and-forth battle continued, as Maine followed with eight consecutive points before the River Hawks outscored the opposition, 14-5, in the next four minutes with the help of seven more points from Massaquoi, making it 79-58 with six minutes to go. Maine kept the pressure high with one more string of seven unanswered, but Spencer broke it up and Simmons II jammed an alley-oop from Yepdo inside the final three minutes to put the exclamation mark on the 91-77 victory.
 
The River Hawks head out on the road to start the month of February, visiting NJIT on Feb. 5 for a 7 p.m. tipoff.