Men’s Basketball Falls at #5 Keene State, 86-73

WESTFIELD, Mass. – Westfield State senior guard Doug Alves (Taunton, Mass.) scored a team-high 17 points, but a late second-half surge by fifth ranked Keene State ultimately put the game away, defeating Westfield 86-73 in a non-conference game on Monday night from Keene, N.H.

Westfield falls to 4-3 on the season. Keene, which improved their national rank in the D3hoops.com top 25 poll to the fifth-ranked team in the country, improves to 7-1 on the year.

Westfield had four double-figure scorers on the night with Brendon Hamilton (Worcester, Mass.), Juju Omot (Springfield, Mass.), and Lid Moreland (Bridgeport, Conn.) all scoring 12 points each to join Alves. Hamilton added a team-high nine rebounds to go along with six blocks.

Jeff Hunter (Hudson, Mass.) led Keene with 21 points and 20 rebounds. Octavio Brito (Lincoln, R.I.) added 14 points and nine rebounds with Nate Siow (Lowell, Mass.) also collecting 14 points while dishing out seven assists.

Westfield kept the game close throughout the majority of the contest as Westfield trailed by six points with 2:33 left in the first half thanks to Alves' hot shooting hand, producing ten points in the first half including five straight for the Owls to close the period.  

Westfield used solid defense in the opening 20 minutes, holding Keene to just 34.1% shooting with Hamilton clogging the paint by swatting four shots. As a team, the Owls posted six blocks to stay in the game despite shooting 31.4% from the floor in the half.

The first half hovered around a four to six-point margin before Keene went on a 7-2 run to close the half, scoring on three of their final four possessions to open up an 11-point halftime lead, 39-28.

To open the second half, Keene scored nine of the first 13 points in with Hunter registering a double-double 46 seconds into the frame to extend the Keene lead to 15 points.

Westfield made a push to get back into the game over the midway point of the second half. Trailing 54-43, Moreland converted a layup at the rim while drawing a foul, then hit the free throw to make it an eight-point game.

Then after a floater from Tahmeen Dupree (New Britain, Conn.), senior forward Brendan Keaveny (Quincy, Mass.) buried a three-pointer followed by an Alves made free throw and an Omot turnaround jumper in the paint, cutting the deficit to six points with 11:03 left in the game.

Keene quickly answered with a 7-0 scoring run to push the lead back to double digits. A pullup jumper from Dupree followed by a bucket from Hunter made it a ten-point game, then a Siow layup drove the lead up to 13 points with 8:35 remaining.

Westfield State would get as close as 11 points for the remainder of the game, the most recent coming off a corner three from Moreland and a layup from Keaveny. However, Keene was able to put the game away on a closing 11-3 run to push their lead to 19 in the final minutes, ultimately sealing the victory.

Westfield State returns home to face Anna Maria on Wednesday at 7:00 P.M. from the Woodward Center in Westfield, Mass.