SPRINGFIELD, Ma. - The Hunter College men's basketball team dropped its opening round game in the Hampton Inn/Naismith Classic agaisnt the Eastern Connecticut State Warriors, 75-35 in Blake Arena on Saturday afternoon.
The loss drops Hunter to 4-6 while Eastern Connecticut State improves to 7-1.
Anthony Uter tallied a team-best 10 points off the bench for the Hawks, while both
Mark Courtien and
Jeffrey Daza added five points each.
Mark Wnukowski pulled down seven rebounds, and
Joel Cerda handed out four assists.
Eastern Connecticut dominated the scoring inside--outscoring Hunter in the paint 38-18. The Hawks also suffered from 21 turnovers which the Warriors converted for 31 points in today's loss.
The Warriors went into the break with an 18-point lead (33-15) as they held Hunter to just 15 points on 6-of-25 shooting from the field. The Hawks narrowed the lead with 6:45 left in the half after Uter converted a three-point play to trim ECSU's lead to seven at 20-13. However, the Warriors opened up a 9-0 run to push ahead 29-13 lead with just under two minutes to play in the first stanza.
The second half opened with a 17-3 run by ECSU as the Warriors jumped out to a 50-20 lead with 13:19 left in regulation to push the game out of Hunter's reach. The Hawks were limited to just 14-of-52 (26.9%) shooting for the game from the field and were 1-13 from (7.7%) from three-point range. Hunter did connect on majority of its free throws, finishing the contest 6-10 (60%)
Hunter returns to action tomorrow, January 1st and will face either host Springfield College or the University of New England at 1pm.
