Justin Brown led the way with a game-high 23 points but it was not enough to prevent the St. Thomas Aquinas College men's basketball team from suffering its fifth straight defeat, 74-66 at Caldwell College. Omar Kellman added 12 points and a game-high nine rebounds for the Spartans. The non-conference tilt dropped STAC's overall record to 8-16, while the hosts improved to 14-12 on the campaign.
The Spartans continued their recent trend of stumbing out of the gate, yielding the contest's first seven points in just over 90 seconds, and finding themselves in a 29-13 hole just midway through the first half. STAC would chip away until Brown's bucket and two free throws keyed an 8-0 run over a three minute span to close the gap to 36-32 at the break.
That momentum would carry into the second frame as an early Brown trey trimmed the mark to just one point, and after an exchange of buckets, an Irin Stark layup at the 18:03 mark staked the visitors to their first lead of the day at 39-38. That would be the only advantage the Spartans were to have as the Cougars reeled off the next seven points and would not trail thereafter. A Brown layup at the 13:20 mark would draw his squad even at 45-45, but another burst by Caldwell - this one an 8-0 run - put the hosts ahead to stay. They would extend the margin to as many as 10 points and STAC would not draw closer than five from that point.
Stark also contributed to the Spartans' offensive output with 10 points, while Caldwell spread the wealth with five scoreres in double-figures - Anthony Gill (16 points), Wyatt Polk (11), Arthur Morrison (11), Peter Diffley (10), and Michael Balkovic (10).
Caldwell won the floor battle, shooting 48% (29-60) to the Spartans' 40% (25-62). The Cougars made their perimeter shots count, hitting 5-of-11 (46%) from behind the arc to just 7-of-23 (30%) for STAC, and the home squad dominated the caroms by a 44-31 margin.
St. Thomas Aquinas enters the final week of the regular season with a return to conference play, and with sights set on qualifying for one of the six bids in the upcoming East Coast Conference Tournament. STAC's 4-10 ECC mark puts them in seventh place, just 1/2 game behind sixth place Molloy entering key contests at the University of Bridgeport this Wednesday, February 25, and in the home finale against Mercy College on Saturday, February 28. Molloy (5-10 in the ECC) finishes its conference slate this Wednesday at second place University of District of Columbia, and if the teams were to finish tied in the standings the Spartans' fate in tiebreakers could well rest in the hands of other ECC results in the final days of competition.