KINGS POINT, N.Y. (Feb. 18, 2023) – The USMMA Mariners men's basketball team left it all out of the floor with a gritty 58-53 Senior Day win over Mount St. Mary on Saturday. With the win, the Mariners finished the regular season over .500 at 13-12 (11-5 Skyline), while the loss dropped the Knights to 9-16 (6-10 Skyline).
Game Links
Senior Day 2023 honored three grinders on head coach
Rob Pryor's roster. Seniors
Dante Spina (Miami, Fla.),
Brandon Bomboy (Yorktown, Va.), and
Kevin Doty (Bayport, N.Y.) went out winners in their final home game inside Liebertz Gymnasium.
Looking to bounce back from Tuesday's tough loss at Manhattanville, the Mariners were in search of offense. A slow start in the first half was not part of the plan as the Mariners went 10-for-30 in the opening 20 minutes. Sophomore
Drew Zalescik (Lambertville, N.J.) was the team's leading scorer at the break with seven points.
Thankfully for Merchant Marine, Mount St. Mary made mistakes and missed opportunities of their own. A 12-for-31 mark in the first half by the Knights allowed the Mariners to hang around. Ten offensive rebounds by the Mariners led to seven second chance points in the first half. Despite the Mariners' offensive struggles in the opening 20 minutes, they only trailed 33-25 at halftime.
Coach Pryor often preaches "stick to the game plan." Sticking to the game plan is exactly what Merchant Marine did in the second half. With their offense in a rut, the Mariners' defense stepped up big time in half number two.
Merchant Marine's defense held the Knights to 20 points the entire half as MSMC shot 8-for-27. Defensively, the Mariners got stop after stop, which was just the spark the offense needed.
At the 16:37 mark, Connor Cyran converted a layup to give the Knights their largest lead of the game at 39-27. Little did Mount St. Mary know they would not score for the next nine minutes and 38 seconds.
In that time, the Mariners' offense went on a 16-0 run to go up 43-39. The game's momentum-swinging basket was a fastbreak layup by Zalescik, who had given a perfect outlet pass by junior
DeMarcus Spivey (Ashburn, Va.). Zalescik finished with a team-high 13 points.
Spivey, who tallied nine points on the day, had himself quite a clutch second half. During the 16-0 run, Spivey sunk two big threes. The first pulled USMMA within one at 39-38 and the second put the Mariners in front 41-39. The lead was Merchant Marine's first since just over three minutes into the game at 5-4.
The other offensive hero for the Mariners this afternoon was sophomore
Kody Robinson (Woodbridge, N.J.). After being held scoreless in the first half on 0-for-4 shooting, Robinson came to life by going 3-for-6 in half number two with 10 points. Two cannon ball threes in the final five minutes padded the Mariners' lead. A lead they carried all the way to win number 13 on the season.
The Mariners ended up shooting 42.3% in the final 20 minutes en route to the comeback victory.
USMMA will now move forward and prepare for the Skyline Conference Tournament. The Mariners secured the #5 seed and will be on the road on Tuesday night, Feb. 21, in the Skyline Quarterfinals at #4-seed SUNY Maritime for a third meeting of the year with the Privateers. In his postgame interview, Bomboy noted that it is hard to beat a team three times in a season, a feat Maritime will be trying to pull off.
The complete bracket for the 2023 Skyline Tournament will be released later this weekend, as there's still one more game to be played Saturday night that will determine the #1 overall seed. Live stats and a live video feed of the Skyline Quarterfinal game at Maritime will be available with links on
the USMMA Men's Basketball Schedule Page.
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