Men’s Basketball tourney loss

ANTHONY ZUCARO ’16
SPORTS EDITOR
Despite a strong effort by the players, the Trinity College Men’s Basketball team fell to Middlebury 70-58 in their NESCAC Semifinal game on Saturday. The Bantams, who are ranked 22 in the country and seeded 1 in the tourney, dropped their record to 19-7 and lost a six game winning streak. The Panthers improved to 17-10 after beating Amherst Sunday with an 81-79 score. The men have gained a bid in the NCAA DIII tournament, playing Johnston and Wales University.
Middlebury was able to gain multiple leads early on in the first half, as Panther center Matt Daley scored the first four points of the game. Trinity was able to catch up with eight points in a row, which included a three pointer by guard Andrew Hurd ’16 and layup by guard Jeremy Arthur ’19. While Arthur drilled a trey to bring Trinity the lead at 23-20, it was snuffed by a 12 point Middlebury run. The run included eight points by Panther guard Matt St. Armour, who had 20 points and nine rebounds in the game, and a layup by forward Zach Baines. The first half closed with a score of 34-25 in favor of the Panthers.
The opening of the second half was just as dominant for the Panthers, who scored six points in under four minutes in order to widen the gap to 40-25. Middlebury’s double digit lead stood for most of the half until Hurd landed a trey to make the score 59-41. Trinity further cut the lead to 61-55 on a free throws from forward Ed Ogundeko ’16, but the Panthers rallied in the last minute to score 9 out of 10 free throw for the final score.
On the Bantam side of things, forward Shay Ajayi was the sole double digit scorer for the Bantams at 11, including four rebounds, four steals, and two blocks. Arthur contributed nine points and five rebounds, while Ogundeko contributed seven points and a team high nine rebounds and four blocked shots. The team finished with 32% field goal shooting, a 22.2 three-point shooting percentage and a 50% free throw shooting percentage on 16 attempts.