Men's Basketball Fall Short to UMass Boston

Senior Isaac Jenkins (Pordenone, Italy) scored 39 points to lead the UMass Boston Beacons (2-3 overall) to a 100-98 overtime victory over the Suffolk University Men's Basketball team (3-3 overall) in a wild affair on Thursday evening at the Regan Gymnasium.

Junior Chris Torres (Brockton, Mass.) hit a three-pointer with two seconds remaining in regulation to send the game to the extra period, but the Rams fell short falling to a 3-3 mark on the season, while the Beacons earned their second win of the season in five games.

Trailing by six points with twenty-one seconds remaining in the contest, Torres would connect on back to back three pointers. With the last possession in regulation junior Matt Pepdjonovic (Quincy, Mass.) drove to the lane and then found a wide open Torres up top whose shot ricocheted off the rim and bounced back in the air and through the net to even the game at 87.

In overtime both teams would go back and forth before freshman Vinny DeLucia (Miami, Fla.) hit a three-pointer to put the visitors up for good 94-93 with 1:16 remaining. Jenkins would follow him up with a three-pointer thirty seconds later to seal the fate of the Rams.

Freshman Mike Caceres (Miami, Fla.) would knock down a wide open layup with sixteen seconds left, before Jenkins closed off his big night connecting on a free-throw to get the Beacons to the century mark for the first time this season.

Torres finished the evening with 32 points for the Rams as he was clutch down the end of regulation and into overtime scoring 10 consecutive points for Suffolk to force the extra period.

Pepdjonovic posted his fifth double-double in six contests this season as he collected 23 rebounds and scored 21 points.

The Rams held a 45-39 edge at halftime with Pepdjonovic and Torres each scoring 13 points in the half. The Rams held their biggest lead of the contest of eight with 18 minutes remaining.

The Beacons would manage to chip away however going on a 14-3 run to regain the lead at 13:33 when freshman sophomore Kadeem Coulter (Boston, Mass.) scored two of his four points to make it 53-51.

The Beacons held their largest lead of the contest at nine points when junior Yusuke Fukata (Oskaa, Japan) hit a three-pointer with six minutes remaining.

Suffolk held a 58-42 edge in rebounds in the contest, but their 22 turnovers turned out to be the difference as it resulted in 26 points for the Beacons.

Suffolk had four players finish in double digits in scoring as junior Colin Halpin (Melrose, Mass.) had 14 and junior Jevic Muteba (Revere, Mass.) netted 12.

DeLucia had 17 points for the Beacons as he was 3-for-4 from beyond the arc as UMass Boston was 8-for-16 as a team from three-point land. Fukata also had 11 points for the visitors.

Both teams will be in conference action this weekend. Umass Boston will be taking on Western Connecticut State University in a Little East Conference (LEC) matchup at 3:00pm on Saturday. Suffolk will host Emerson College in Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) action at 1:00pm on Saturday at the Regan Gymnasium.