MANCHESTER, N.H. – Gritty, hard-nosed defense has been the calling card of the New Haven men's basketball team all season. However, the Chargers took it up a notch when they went on the road and dismantled the top-seeded Southern New Hampshire University Penmen 59-42 on Wednesday night to reach the Northeast-10 Conference title game.
The Penmen had just 16 points in the first half and never could make a run at the visiting Chargers.
"I think we had one of the best defensive teams in the country all year long and tonight we were really good," New Haven coach Ted Hotaling said. "A lot of credit to the individual players. Vic [Olawoye] did an unbelievable job on their leading scorer [Matt Becht]."
Becht came into the game leading Southern New Hampshire with an average of 15.3 points per game and shooting 47.5% from 3-point range.
He didn't make his first 3-point shot until 36.8 seconds remained and by that time it was too little, too late as New Haven was on its way to its third NE10 final since 2019. Becht finished with just five points.
"Shoutout to Vic," said New Haven senior guard Quashawn Lane (Trenton, N.J./Trenton Catholic Academy). "Vic should have been all defensive team [in the Northeast-10]. We had our game plan going in to focus on him because last game he got out pretty badly on us. We dialed on him and Vic did a tremendous job all game not letting him get comfortable. Everybody behind him, they were in the right spots defensively."
Lane, who led the Chargers with 17 points, is the only player on this year's team who played on those two teams that advanced to the NE10 title game.
"It feels amazing," Lane said. "Definitely a lot of energy in the gym. We knew we had a lot of people against us so we knew we had to bring the energy. I thought we came out strong. In the first half, we held them to 16 points so that really gave us a lot of energy coming out of the first half as well."
A potential turning point could have come when Majur Majak (Poughkeepsie, N.Y./), who finished with 17 rebounds and three blocked shots, picked up his third foul just 3:05 into the second half.
Jason Edokpayi (Laurel, Md./Mount St. Joseph), who didn't play in the first half, gave the Chargers some quality minutes while Majak was on the bench. His dunk, off a pass from Ty Perry (Boston, Mass./Brighton), might have been the most important shot of the game as it turned into a three-point play.
Majak was at the scorers' table ready to check into the game. When that shot was made, he was called back to the bench and New Haven was able to buy some more time without one of top shot blockers at the Division II level.
"I thought Jason gave us some really good minutes," Hotaling said. "I thought the and-1 dunk was a momentum-changing play. I thought the third foul on Maj could have been really hard for us to overcome because of how important he is and I thought the guys around Jason did a great job helping him defend."
Majak had a pair of early blocked shots and then a dunk off an assist from Olawoye to put the Chargers up by 10 midway through the first half.
The lead was 12 following a four-point play by Lane before a Ryan Layman basket just before halftime made it a 26-16 game at the break.
The Penmen were fortunate to only be down by 10 at halftime after missing all 10 of their 3-point shots. Layman and Evan Guillory combined to go 7 of 18 from the floor with the rest of the Southern New Hampshire players shooting 1 of 15.
The Penmen made a few more shots in the second half. However, they never seriously threatened to come all the way back as Perry hit some key shots to finish with 16 points and Davontrey Thomas (Poughkeepsie, N.Y./Poughkeepsie) ended up with 10 points.
"Rankings never matter to us," Lane said. "All that matters is coming out and playing New Haven basketball. I think when we put out a good product and play New Haven basketball, we can beat anybody.
"Being on the road is tough and we would rather have a home crowd advantage but we have a lot of experienced guys, a lot of older guys so we know how to bring energy ourselves."
The Chargers will return to New Hampshire to meet Saint Anselm in Saturday's championship game.
