BOX SCORE MANCHESTER, N.H. – The fourth-seeded University of New Haven men’s basketball team recorded its first NCAA postseason win since 2003 with a 73-66 triumph over fifth-seeded Dominican College in the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Division II East Region Championship in Manchester, N.H.
 
New Haven (20-8) advances to play top seed Franklin Pierce tomorrow evening at 7:30 p.m. in the second semifinal contest. UNH defeated the Ravens, 53-50, in Rindge on Jan. 15. The victory marks the program’s first 20-win campaign since the 2003-04 squad won 21 contests. Dominican (22-7) was the regular season champion of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference.
 
Justin Exum (Brooklyn, N.Y./Xaverian) led all scorers with 21 points, sparked by a 12-for-14 showing at the free throw line. Jeffery Adkins (Piscataway, N.J./Piscataway) added 15 points and Jeremy Williams (Silver Spring, Md./Springbrook) netted 15. Eric Anderson (Newark, N.J./Newark Tech) added seven points and tore down a game-high 16 rebounds. The Northeast-10 Defensive Player of the Year also matched his career high with seven blocked shots.
 
Collectively, the UNH Chargers shot 17-for-40 (42.5 percent) from the floor, 6-for-11 (54.5 percent) from three-point range and 33-for-40 (82.5 percent) from the free throw line.
 
The Chargers from Dominican went 25-for-57 (43.9 percent) from the field, 5-for-14 (35.7 percent) from distance and 11-for-17 (64.7 percent) at the line. Leon Porter had a team-best 20 points for Dominican.
 
The rebounding efforts resulted in a 30-30 deadlock, and Dominican held an 8-6 edge in forced turnovers.
 
After Dominican scored the first four points of the contest, an Adkins three-point play started New Haven on a 12-0 run as the CACC’s Chargers were held scoreless for a span of 4:48. The game of runs continued as Dominican answered with an 11-2 spurt to reclaim a 15-14 lead with 9:38 remaining until the intermission. The Blue and Gold rebuild a six-point edge at 25-19 and headed into the locker room with a 29-25 advantage.
 
A four-point play by Porter immediately evened the score, 29-29, just 15 seconds into the second period. In total, Dominican began the half on a 7-0 run to claim a lead and extended the cushion to five points at 43-38. New Haven would net eight of the next 10 points, including three-pointers by Ashanti DePass (Baldwin, N.Y./Baldwin) and Exum, to tie the score at 45-45 and Williams followed with a jumper to put UNH back on top.
 
The score was tied three more times before a 7-1 run gave New Haven a 58-52 lead that it would not relinquish with 4:28 to play. UNH shot 10-for-14 from the stripe from that point forward to ice the 73-66 victory.
 
The winner of tomorrow’s New Haven/Franklin Pierce semifinal will meet the winner of the 5:30 p.m. meeting between third-seeded Assumption and seventh-seeded Bridgeport. The East Region Championship Game is slated for 7 p.m. on Tuesday.