Men’s basketball bounced back into the win column Jan. 31 against Eastern Connecticut State with a final score of 81-71.
Their win over East Conn comes after their largest defeat yet this season excluding Division I opponents, a 105-53 loss at Southern Maine Jan. 28, which broke the Beacons’ longest win streak of the season, lasting five games.
It was a big win for the Beacons over the Warriors who have struggled in Little East Conference play all year as opposed to UMass Boston’s striking 9-2 conference record. Cameron Perkins led the way once again with 24 points along with Raphel Laurent and Davon Sanders with 20 apiece.
It’s Sanders’ second highest scoring total of the year and the same goes for his free throw attempts. The second year guard shot 12/13 from the charity stripe on Saturday, the most of anyone on either side. Sanders played the full 40 minutes of gametime and still managed not to log a single turnover.
Beacons Head Coach Jason Harris talked about Sanders’ steadiness and composure after the game on Saturday. “He loves that moment, he loves the free throws, he’s a really calm kid and it’s one of the things we loved about him in high school,” he said.
Steven Cordero stuck out on Saturday as well, playing 26 minutes which is good for his second most this season. Cordero put up nine points on 3/6 shooting and changed the game defensively, picking up a block and a steal each.
“We were a little limited, we do have some injuries in the program right now and Steven had to step up and play a little bit more of [Clayton McLaren’s] minutes tonight… he played a really good game for us with the exception of the two turnovers. Other than that I thought Steven was awesome for us tonight,” Harris said.
Perkins, their usual point leader, did his thing again after a bump in the road the whole team shared at Southern Maine. Perkins put up just four points against the Huskies, the lowest total of his collegiate career. He played just 10 minutes in Southern Maine before seeing the bench and not returning.
When asked if Perkins was dealing with any injury following his 24 points in 35 minutes on Saturday, Harris said, “He doesn’t look too injured to me.”
Excluding the hiccup in Southern Maine, Perkins has been on a tear. His 22.6 points per game lead the entire Little East Conference—with Laurent, third place, not too far behind. Perkins is also third in the conference in three point percentage and has the third highest scoring game this year, with a 35 point night back in January.
