Martinez Puts Up Team-High 16 Points as Men's Basketball Visits Daemen
Box Score AMHERST, N.Y. (Feb. 21, 2015) – Junior Lazaro Martinez (Harlem, N.Y./Mohawk Valley CC) scored a team-high 16 points as the Mercy College men's basketball team suffered an 84-69 setback to Daemen College on Saturday afternoon at Lumsden Gymnasium.
The Mavericks (7-17, 2-16 ECC) head home winless on their trip upstate, while the Wildcats (17-8, 12-5 ECC) snap a two-game skid on Senior Day.
Martinez also added six boards to his stat line while freshman Matthew Boyd (Hempstead, N.Y./Half Hallow Hills East) dropped in a career-high 12 points on 5-of-10 shooting to go along with five rebounds. Junior Gerald McClease (New Haven, Conn./Sullivan CC) chipped in 11 points and eight rebounds and junior Joshua Thompson (Chester, Pa./Globe Institute) nearly missed a double-double ending with a season-high 10 points and nine rebounds.
Senior Gerald Beverly paced Daemen with 29 points and 14 rebounds in his final home game for the Wildcats.
Mercy, coming off a close game yesterday against Roberts Wesleyan, faced a tall task in taking on a Daemen team that had a 44-game home winning streak until an overtime loss to NYIT on January 24th and was celebrating Senior Day.
The Wildcats jumped out of the gates early, scoring the first 10 points of the game and holding the Mavericks scoreless until a Thompson free throw at the 15:07 mark of the first half. Daemen would lead by double figures for the rest of the half and head into the break up 44-20 as Mercy had no answer for a Wildcats team that shot 60 percent from the floor and made eight threes in the frame.
Despite trailing by 32, 70-38, with 11:42 remaining, the Mavericks continued to fight and ended the game on a 31-14 run to fall by only a respectable 15 points in a tough atmosphere.
Mercy held the Wildcats to just 35.7 percent shooting in the second half and shot 42.9 percent themselves to make their late run. Daemen shot 47.2 percent on the night while Mercy came in at 36.6 percent. The Wildcats made a living from beyond the arc going 14-of-27 from long distance and went 20-of-24 from the charity stripe. The Mavericks were able to hold a 46-33 edge on the glass which they turned into a 22-13 edge in second chance points and 30-16 edge in points in the paint.
Head Coach Dr. Jody King and the Mavericks return to action Tuesday, February 24th as they host St. Thomas Aquinas for Senior Day at 7:30 p.m. Graduate student Terrance Murchie and senior Adam Black will be recognized in a ceremony prior to the game.
