LOWELL, Mass. – Junior Angel Montas Jr. (La Romana, D.R.) registered a double-double with 25 points and 10 rebounds to help lift the UMass Lowell men's basketball team (12-15, 7-5 AE) to a 78-56 victory against New Hampshire (8-17, 4-8 AE) at the Kennedy Family Athletic Complex on Thursday evening.
 
"I was really happy tonight," said Head Coach Pat Duquette. "It was a good win, good crowd and a lot of guys contributed, which is fun to be part of. Everyone works so hard in practice and puts in so much time, so it's nice when it's equally distributed. We seem to be playing well at the right time. We've gotten better every week, stayed positive and stayed together. We haven't been perfect, but we're getting better, so it feels good to be where we are at this point in the season."
 
Montas Jr. shot 61% from the field in the contest, as the River Hawks stretched their current win streak to three games. Junior Xavier Spencer (Calgary, Alberta) added to the offense with 17 points and classmate Darrel Yepdo (Dracut, Mass.) rounded out the double-digit scorers with 12 points. Senior Austin Green (Sicklerville, N.J.) paced his squad on the glass with 12 rebounds, as well. As a team, the River Hawks shot 51% from the floor on the night, taking a 50-30 advantage in the paint and outrebounding the opposition 44-39.
 
Montas Jr. tallied the first bucket of the contest, and although the Wildcats forced three early lead changes, a string of nine unanswered River Hawk points, including a two-handed slam from junior Shawn Simmons II (Philadelphia, Pa.), gave the home team a 15-7 advantage with 14:25 remaining in the first half. The Wildcats were able to pull within two possessions before Spencer and Green scored on back-to-back possessions to make it 19-10 at 12:32.
 
Three minutes later Yepdo knocked down a three before Montas Jr. converted on an and-1 to stretch the lead to double-digits for the first time at 27-14 with eight minutes left in the first. The teams traded baskets, as the visitors would pull within 11, but four different River Hawks combined for points in an 8-3 spurt down the stretch to help the home side take a 42-28 edge into the break.
 
Montas Jr. started the second half in the same fashion as the first, scoring the first two points coming out of the locker room. New Hampshire responded with nine of the next 11 points, but the River Hawks then put together a 12-0 run that was capped off by a three from Spencer to pull away 58-37 with 11:16 left to play.
 
The Wildcats kept pushing with a pair of treys before UMass Lowell used a 10-2 spurt to extend the buffer to 71-45 at 6:13 with the help of three points each from Spencer and junior Khalil Farmer (Philadelphia, Pa). The teams swapped possessions until UNH tallied seven points in a row, but junior Jared Frey (Columbus, Ohio) hit a jumper and junior Kris Johnson (Prince George's County, Md.) jammed a fast-break dunk in the final seconds to seal the 78-56 victory.
 
The River Hawks wrap up the three-game homestand on Saturday, February 21 when they host Binghamton at 1 p.m.