Men's Basketball Falls to #10 Bantams in Trinity Holday Invitational Title Game

HARTFORD, Conn. – The Bridgewater State University men's basketball team dropped an 89-75 decision to nationally ranked Trinity College in the championship game of the Trinity Holiday Invitational on Sunday afternoon at the Ray Oosting Gymnasium.

The host Bantams, who were ranked tenth in the most recent D3hoops.com Poll, remain undefeated om the season as they improve to 13-0. The visiting Bears fall to 4-8 with the setback.

Sophomore Henry Vetter (Kenilworth, Ill.) paced Trinity with 23 points, five rebounds and six assists, while senior Ben Callahan (New York, N.Y.) added 19 points. The Bantams also received 13 points in 18 minutes off the bench from junior Sean Macarchuk (Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.) as well as 12 points and four rebounds from sophomore Jarrel Okorougo (Stoneham, Mass.). Freshman Jared Berry (Danvers, Mass.) added 11 points in just eight minutes off the pine.

Graduate student Emerson Halbleib (Carmel, Ind.) led the way for Bridgewater State with 22 points, six rebounds and a game-best four blocked shots. Halbleib, who garnered All-Tournament honors, knocked down 10 of 13 field goal attempts. Freshman Josh Campbell (Plymouth, Mass.) checked in with 18 points on 7 of 11 shooting for the Bears while sophomore Dante Kikuba (Framingham, Mass.) contributed 13 points, four rebounds, three steals and a game-high nine assists. Senior Alex Gonzalez (Peabody, Mass.) rounded out the Bears' double-digit point producers with 12 points.

Bridgewater scored the first five points of the game on a Gonzalez jumper and Kikuba three-pointer and led throughout the majority of the first half. The Bears took their biggest lead of the stanza (21-13) following back-to-back layups by Precious Okoh (Brockton, Mass.) and Campbell with 13:48 showing on the scoreboard.

Later in the period, a Gonzalez three-pointer with 8:16 remaining made it a seven-point game (31-24).

The Bantams, however, reeled off eight straight points, all on layups, to take their first lead of the game at 32-31. There would be four more lead changes over the next three-plus minutes with the final lead change coming on a Trevor McDonald (Natick, Mass.) layup with 2:51 remaining. McDonald's bucket jumpstarted a 9-2 Trinity run to the close out the first half as the Bantams took a 46-42 lead into the break.

The Bears trimmed the deficit to three (56-53) after a Halbleib layup early in the second half, but that would be as close as they would get. The Bantams outscored the Bears 17-3 over the next seven minutes to take a commanding 73-56 lead. Berry scored six points during the spurt while Macarchuk and Vetter added five and four points, respectively. Bridgewater missed ten straight shots and went 1-for-12 during the game-changing run.

Trinity got up by as many as 18 points (on three separate occasions) and maintained a double-digit advantage the rest of the way.

The Bantams shot 51.4% (36-70) for the game and went 9-for-11 (81.8%) at the free throw line. The Bears connected on 44.1% (30-68) of their field goal attempts and converted on 7 of 8 (87.5%) free throws. Each team made eight three-pointers.

The Bears open Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) play on Wednesday night when they travel to Salem State University for a seven o'clock game with the Vikings.