WORCESTER, Mass. – The Saint Anselm College men's basketball team pulled away from the host Greyhounds from Assumption College in the first half and never looked back, notching a 86-67 victory on the road at Laska Gymnasium.
Box Score
Saint Anselm moves to 13-8 overall on the season and to 9-5 against Northeast-10 Conference opponents. With a Bentley loss to division-leading Stonehill on Wednesday, the Hawks hold sole possession of second place. The Hawks have now won 12 of the last 13 games played against Assumption (11-10, 5-9 NE10) dating back to 2013-14.
Junior Chris Paul (Highland Mills, N.Y.) scored 24 points with six rebounds. Classmate Gustav Suhr-Jessen (Virum, Denmark) tallied 21 points for the Hawks and narrowly missed a double-double with nine rebounds to his credit. Freshman Tyler Arbuckle (Bristol, Conn.) and senior Danny Evans (Leeds, United Kingdom) tallied 17 and 16 points, respectively.
The Hawks, who saw Evans match Suhr-Jessen with a game-high nine rebounds, out-rebounded the hosts by a 47-to-38 margin as each member of the "starting five" picked up at least five caroms. Arbuckle pulled down eight in the game, a career-high mark for the freshman. Saint Anselm also threw up six blocks, giving them at least one rejection in each of the last 11 games.
Suhr-Jessen has now posted at least 19 points in three of his last four games against Assumption.
Down by one early, the Hawks used an Arbuckle triple, an Evans jumper and a Suhr-Jessen layup to build a 14-8 lead with 15:06 to go. Saint Anselm upped its lead to a half-high lead of 16 points following a Paul layup with 4:21 to go. The Greyhounds trimmed their deficit to 10 points just before the half, but a last-second Evans triple put the Hawks up by 13, 47-34, entering halftime.
The Hawks thwarted a second-half Assumption rally as after the Greyhounds cut the score to 58-52 with 12:26 left, Saint Anselm opened up a quick 6-0 scoring spurt and finished the contest with 28 of the final 43 points to hold on to a 19-point advantage as time expired.
Assumption was led by 21 points and 14 rebounds from Jordan White.
The Hawks host the Skyhawks (14-8, 10-4 NE10) this Saturday, Feb. 8 at 3:30 p.m.
