Cats Cruise past Black Bears

34 points from freshman propel Vermont to a huge win at home

Dakota Rubin

Issue date: 2/21/06 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Catherine Nally

Catamount freshman Colin McIntosh (40) drives to the hoop in Wednesday's game against the University of Maine. The Catamounts won in rout, 79-48

The University of Vermont Men's Basketball team brushed off their recent scoring woes in a blow out of Maine, 79-48, on Wednesday night. The Cats shot a blistering 53.3 percent from the floor and 50 percent from 3-point range, while holding the Black Bears to just 32.8 percent shooting and 14.3 percent from beyond the arc.

"The difference tonight was we got some guys to make shots," said UVM head coach Mike Lonergan. "We've been getting good shots all year; we just haven't been making them."

With sophomore Kyle Cieplicki sitting out the game with an injured wrist, Lonegran was looking for his team to respond and they did just that.

Sophomore Josh Duell took Cieplicki's spot in the starting lineup and spent much of the night running the point. This allowed the starting point guard, freshman, Mike Trimboli to move off the ball and he took advantage of it by hitting four of his five 3-point attempts and finishing with a game-high 15 points.

"Mike's a really, really good shooter and we've got to find ways to get him shots," Lonergan said.

And they did just this by turning the point guard duties over to Duell. He scored seven points but more importantly he had a career high seven assists.

"In high school I had to bring the ball up a little bit," said Duell, "So I'm reverting back to that a little bit."

Meanwhile, Timothy McCrory, Ryan Schneider and Rob Sisca came off the bench to provide a big spark and much needed scoring help. The Cats bench outscored the Black Bears 29-11 in the game.

"We got a lot of key contributions off the bench," Duell said. "Robbie Sisca came in and hit two 3s and Ryan Schneider played a great game. When you can put it together like that it's hard to beat."

In the first half of the game, trailing 16-14, Vermont stepped up the pressure. Over the next seven minutes the Cats held the Black Bears scoreless while going on a 13-0 run to take a commanding lead. That lead only grew as the halftime score was 40-24 in Vermont's favor.

The second half was no different as the Cats showed off their ever-improving bench, and they extended the lead to 20 and then 30 points.

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