SOUTH PORTLAND - Coleman Findlay scored a team-high 21 points, including the 1,000th of his college career, as the Southern Maine Community College men's basketball team ruled the boards and used a balanced offensive attack to pull away from Naval Academy Prep School for a 95-82 win on Friday night at the Hutchinson Union Building.
The Seawolves (3-3) trailed early on, but got some hot shooting off the bench to take a 44-43 halftime lead, then stretched their advantage to double digits in the final five minutes of the contest. Down 15-6 with 15:12 left in the first half, SMCC called timeout. Soon after, Michael Burchill (Saco, Maine) knocked a 3-point shot to spark a 14-4 Seawolves run that gave them a 20-19 lead midway through the first half.
Burchill came off the bench and made three of his four 3s in the first half. He finished with 18 points. Eric Nelson (Portland, Maine), Matt Findlay (South Portland, Maine) and Paul Holland (London, England) all scored 13 for SMCC, while Kory Martin (Saco, Maine) added 10. "The key thing that we did was stay together as a team," Burchill said. "Communication was key. We just put up good shots." Navy Prep's Dan Cozad had a game-high 22 points, Kendall O'Neill finished with 20, Christopher Rountree had 16 and Brandon Carter chipped in 12.
Coleman Findlay (South Portland, Maine), who was an efficient 8 for 11 from the field and also had a game-high nine rebounds, said coach Matt Richards has a simple message for his team during the timeout as it faced the early deficit. "He said we've got to pick it up," said the junior center. "We better pick it up against these athletic guys or we're going to lose."
Even though they were outshot 67 percent to 36 percent in the first half, the Seawolves managed to take the lead into the locker room courtesy of a 3 from Holland. SMCC made seven 3s in the opening half and 10 in the game. With 4:16 to go in the first half, Coleman Findlay scored inside to reach the 1,000-point mark, the 14th player in school history to do so. Play was stopped briefly as Findlay was honored and presented with the game ball. "I couldn't have done it without my brother (Matt)," Coleman Findlay said. "He'd rather make the good pass than score the last basket of the game."
"Coleman is a very good player," Richards said. "There's no doubt about it. He's one of the more gifted post players I've coached since I've been here. And Matt makes the game a little bit easier for him because Matt likes to take that role of making sure other people get the ball. Coleman's got 1,000 points and a lot of those assists came from his brother. Both of them have had a very nice career here."
The game remained tight throughout much of the second half, but four straight by Nelson made it 80-73 with 7:42 left and Martin's basket inside with 4:22 to go pushed the lead to 88-77. SMCC had a 27-13 rebounding edge in the second half (44-30 for the game). "We're coming offensively," Richards said. "We're really starting to play well at the offensive end. And I was really, really happy with the last 10 minutes of the second half. I thought we owned the boards."
SMCC returns to action Sunday, hosting Community College of Rhode Island at 2 p.m. at the HUB.