Cal Maritime picks up 1st win of season
Alex Maze's career highs lift Keelhaulers to an 83-74 OT victory
The Cal Maritime men's basketball team won its first game of the season on Thursday night in Arizona thanks to stellar game from Alex Maze.
Maze scored six of his careerhigh 21 points in overtime in the Cal Pac Conference clash inside the ERAU Activity Center in Prescott, Ariz., to defeat EmbryRiddle, 83-74. The Keelhaulers outscored the host Eagles 15-6 in overtime by shooting 75 percent from the floor. The Keelhaulers hit all three shots from 3-point land and connected on 6 of 8 attempts from the freethrow line.
For the second game in a row, DJ Henry scored a career-high 13 points and Lucky Hampton matched his teammate's total by scoring nine of his points before halftime.
Leading by one entering the final minute of regulation, DeAndre Minor came up clutch with a layup with 18 seconds left to extend the Keelhaulers' lead to three points.
Even though Embry-Riddle's Jake Klinger forced overtime by sinking a three, Cal Maritime remained poised and regained its lead on a three from Illyaas Rafiq with just over four minutes left in the extra session.
Back-to-back layups from Embry-Riddle helped Maritime regain the lead at 73-71 until the Keelhaulers took over the rest of the game and dominated both ends of the court, starting with 3-pointers from Maze, on consecutive possessions, which gave the Keelhaulers the lead for good.
Leading 77-73, a pair of free throws from Henry pushed his team's lead to six before Embry Riddle responded with a free throw of its own to end Cal Maritime's 8-0 scoring run.
Thursday's result, the team's first road win over Embry-Riddle since the 2015-16 season, improved Cal Maritime's record to 1-11 overall and 1-4 in conference play. Embry-Riddle will continue its homestand with records of 1-11 and 0-5.
Not only did all 10 Keelhaulers who saw action Thursday night score and record at least a pair of rebounds, they outrebounded the Eagles by 10 (38-28), forced 16 turnovers and turned those miscues into 15 points.
Cal Maritime also ended the night with 10 more second-chance points (122), 12 more points in the paint (34-22) compared to Embry-Riddle and saw its bench nearly score twice as many points compared to the Eagles' reserves (32-17).