KEENE, N.H. – After being down just five at the half, Southern Vermont College saw Keene State College pull away with a 22-point advantage in the second period for an 87-60 non-conference men's basketball win at Spaulding Gym.
In the first regular season game of the year for both teams, Keene State-- a squad that entered the night being ranked 19th in the D3hoops.com preseason poll-- narrowly edged SVC 40-35 in the opening half. The Owls then shot 50 percent from the floor in the second half and won the turnover battle by a 12-9 margin to increase their advantage on the way to victory.
Southern Vermont (0-1) now gears up for this weekend's Hampton Inn Classic hosted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth; SVC will first play Bowdoin College on Friday evening, start time slated for 5:30 p.m.
SVC senior Rayshawn Taylor (Silver Spring, Md.) led the visitors with 16 points on the night, adding three steals and two assists to his line. Classmate Nate Goldsmith (Capitol Heights, Md.) followed with 14 points, registering a team-best 10 rebounds for his second career double-double in Southern Vermont's first meeting with Keene State since the 2005-06 season.
Mountaineer freshman guard Josh Borders (Miami, Fla.) notched eight points in 33 minutes with the start while senior Davante Jordan (Great Mills, Md.) had five points, eight boards and a pair of assists. Junior Daemond Carter (Forestville, Md.)chalked up seven points, four rebounds and three steals for SVC.
Keene State connected at a 47.8 percent (33-69) clip from the floor on the night while Southern Vermont did so on just 23-of-70 (32.9 percent) of its field goal attempts. Both teams hit five three-pointers as the Owls pulled down a 54-40 advantage on the boards. KSC also had a 48-30 upper hand in points from the paint.
The opening 20 minutes were a tightly-contested battle with neither team leading by more than four until a Keene State layup with just 1:26 to go in the half put the hosts on top by the five-point difference. The Owls went up 6-4 early on, only to see Taylor turn a Borders steal into a trey at the other end of the court for the lead. KSC would quickly take it back, but another Taylor deep ball started a 7-0 Mountaineer surge that put SVC ahead 15-12 for what would be the visitors' biggest lead of the night; Goldsmith notched a pair of layups in that short run.
Keene State inched back with six unanswered of its own over the next four minutes, but a Borders triple stopped the SVC drought and tied it at 18-18. Baskets went back-and-forth as neither side could sustain a lead, Goldsmith hitting a layup at the 6:26 mark to cap a 5-0 burst which forced a KSC timeout and put Southern Vermont in front by a 30-28 tally. The Owls came out of their stoppage and tacked up an 8-3 upper hand over the next four minutes towards the end of the half. SVC freshman Nick Placella (Danbury, Conn.) got a put-back to go with 2:46 on the clock, but the Mountaineers would be shut out the rest of the period as Keene State put in four more points to go into the locker room on top 40-35.
Southern Vermont cut it back to two with a pair of layups once the action got back underway, but the Owls then took to a 9-0 surge for a lead they wouldn't relinquish the rest of the night. Cook ended that run with a bucket from the outside, only to see the hosts continue to connect to maintain their separation. Taylor had nine of his points in the second half as Jordan grabbed six of his boards in that time, but neither of those lines could help SVC trim KCS's lead through the midpoint of the stanza. Up 11 with 7:30 left to go, Keene State scored 16 of the next 18 points to put it out of reach for the Mountaineers.
– #LetsGoSVC –