The Dominican University men's basketball team threatened the #16 Benedictine University Eagles' 31-game Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) win streak on Wednesday night at the Igini Sports Forum, leading the Eagles by as many as seven before Benedictine was able to emerge with an 88-82 win.
Tim Robertson scored a game-high 28 points, including 18 in the first half when the Stars built up a seven-point, 28-21, lead on the conference-leading Eagles.
After Robertson hit a pair of free throws with 1:49 to play in the first half to extend the Stars' lead back to five, 39-34, the Eagles scored the final six points of the half, including a Kenny Bogus layup with :03 remaining in the half to take just their second lead of the night, 40-39, at the break.
The Stars and Eagles traded baskets and leads over the first 13 minutes of the second half until Benedictine used a 10-2 run that spanned 2:34 and was capped by a pair of Michael Blaszczyk free throws that allowed the Eagles to open their largest lead of the night, 80-72, with 4:28 to play.
The Stars managed to angle the lead back down to four on two occasions including 86-82 with 1:26 to play when
Charlie Ollis finished off the glass but the only points scored the rest of the night were a pair of free throws by Benedictine's Tahron Harvey.
The Stars shot better than 44-percent from the field in the loss, including hitting at an 11-for-20 clip from beyond the three-point arc. Robertson's game-high 28 led four in double-figures scoring.
Kevin Mack finished with a season-high 14 points, shooting 5-for-9 from the field and 4-for-6 from three, while
Josh Mayberry and
Keshaun Smith added 12 and 11 points respectively.
The Eagles, led by Harvey's 27 points, had five in double-figures with Blaszczyk (15), Brayden Olsen (13), Adam Reynolds (12) and Zach Gorney (10) and shot better than 53-percent from the field (30-56) but managed to hit just three of 14 attempts from three-point distance.
The biggest advantage for the Eagles came at the foul line where Benedictine hit on 25 of their 29 attempts from the charity stripe while Dominican attempted just 14 free throws, converting on 13 attempts.
With the loss, Dominican falls to 5-5 on the season and 3-3 in the NACC with a trip to Lakeland University scheduled for Saturday. Tipoff with the Muskies is slated for 4:15 p.m.
