Jan. 26, 2009
Box Score | Photo Gallery 
PRINCESS ANNE, Md. - For the second straight game the University of Maryland Eastern Shore men's basketball team faced a deficit in the second half and battled back.
This time the Hawks couldn't quite complete the comeback from down as many as 11, falling to Bethune-Cookman, 58-55, at the William P. Hytche Athletic Center Monday.
UMES (5-12, 2-4 MEAC) trailed, 33-25, at the half, and came all the way back to knot the game at 55 on a runner in the lane by Marc Davis (Baltimore, Md.) with 43.7 seconds to play. Davis drew contact from B-CU's Kevan Creppy as the shot fell and he drained the ensuing free throw.
With the clock at 18 seconds, a foul put Jarrell Thomas on the line. He hit 1-of-2 and then C.J. Reed sank two more free throws to hand the Hawks their first loss at home since Nov. 22 against Longwood.
"We're going to play games like this," said UMES head coach Frankie Allen. "We played hard, we put ourselves in position to win and it got down to one play right there at the end. It's just one of those things where we just came up on the short end of a game where we had a chance to win."
Keishawn Mayes (Warrenton, N.C.) led the Hawks with 17 points and six rebounds, while Davis and Jaime Boyer (Philadelphia, Pa.) had 15 and 10 points, respectively. Reed had 20 points for the Wildcats.
B-CU jumped out to an 18-11 lead midway through the first half on a jumper by John Holmes.
The lead was cut to four at 20-16 when Davis hit a 3-pointer from the right wing with just under eight minutes left.
The Wildcats went on a 13-5 run over the next six minutes to open its biggest lead of the half and game at 33-21, before the Hawks went into the locker room down eight.
UMES was 8-22 in the first half (36.4 percent). B-CU shot an even 50 percent on 13-of-26 from the floor.
Mayes tallied seven consecutive points to pull the Hawks within one less than three minutes into the second on three layups.
B-CU had eight of the next 10 points to push it back to a seven-point advantage with 13:35 left. Thomas capped the stretch with a layup of his own.
The comeback began with the Hawks down, 47-36, with 10:38 to play. UMES scored another seven unanswered on four Davis free throws and a Boyer three to make it a 47-43 game at the 7:58 mark.
The teams traded baskets until the Davis floater with the B-CU lead not getting above six the rest of the night.
UMES shot 10-0f-20 in the second half and was 42.9 percent for the game. B-CU was 8-for-21 in the final 20 minutes and finished at 44.7 percent.
The Wildcats won the rebounding battle, 36-24 and outscored the Hawks' bench 27-5.
UMES travels to the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. Jan. 28 for game two of its season series with NJIT at 7:30.
