Evan Singletary scored a career-high of 22 points and 518 native Greig Stire tallied a new career high with 13 to lead UAlbany to a 75-63 victory over UMass-Lowell Wednesday night at SEFCU Arena, pushing the Danes to 16-6 overall and 5-2 in conference.
Singletary finally got past his fateful career high of 21, which he has scored eight times in his UAlbany career. Stire’s previous career high was 12, which he’s scored twice, at USF and St. Francis Brooklyn, both coming this year.
The Danes went into the halftime break up 47-31, after shooting over 53% from the field and scoring 22 points in the paint, while only turning the ball over 3 times. The Danes also made plays on the defensive side, forcing the River Hawks into 9 turnovers, getting 11 points off those chances.
But the 2nd half was a different story.
After 2 turnovers in the first 4 possessions of the final 20 minutes from the Danes starting five, Head Coach Will Brown took out all five guys, going deep into his bench to put in Jamir Andrews, who going in had only seen 5 minutes of action so far in conference play, and David Nichols, who going into the game had only seen 13 minutes in the same time frame, looking to send a message to his starting group.
Andrews took advantage of his time on the floor, putting 5 points to his name, including a 3 immediately after he entered, and also tallying a rebound and a steal. And after his 4 minutes of action, returned to the bench to an fair ovation from the crowd. Nichols had 4 points in his 6 minutes of playing time.
Scotia-Glenville native Joe Cremo once again led the Danes bench in scoring, tallying 13 on 4-of-5 shooting from the field and 4-of-5 from the free throw line, also pulling down a pair of rebounds and also blocking a shot. It was the 10th time in the past 11 games the freshman guard has tallied double figures for the Purple and Gold. The Danes got 29 points from the bench, as Dallas Ennema scored the other 7.
The Danes will look to continue their solid America East play Saturday, when they travel to Hartford for a 7 PM matchup.
