Chargers’ NE-10 run ends with OT loss

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Three times in six days the University of New Haven found a way to keep their NCAA tournament hopes alive with entertaining and some may say heart-stopping finishes in the Northeast-10 Conference tournament.

The magical run came to an end at Stoutenburgh Gym on Saturday afternoon as host Saint Anselm emerged with the 65-63 overtime win in the NE-10 championship game.

The Chargers led by 10 points with less than nine minutes remaining but went cold from the field at the worst possible time.

“Every game has been a fight, we had to fight for all four of those,” said New Haven guard Elijah Bailey, who had a chance to force overtime but his baseline jumper was short on the final play of the game. “I was proud of my team, I thought we played to the last minute but couldn’t get the win.”

The Hawks cut the eightpoint halftime deficit to two thanks to back to back 3pointers by Danny Evans and Tyler Arbuckle. Saint Anselm took advantage of a pair of calls as Kessly Felizor picked up his fourth foul with 16:21 remaining and 36 seconds later D’Nathan Knox was whistled for an intentional foul as he raced in from behind and emphatically went for a block on Miles Tention. Although it appeared as if Knox got a piece of the ball, the officials conferred and ruled that it indeed was an intentional foul. Tention made one of the two foul shots and four seconds later Arbuckle hit a layup to pull the Hawks within a point. Saint Anselm capitalized and took the lead on a pair of occasions including a layup by Arbuckle, a freshman from Bristol, to make it a 40-38 game with 14:24 to play.

The Chargers reached the title game by always having an answer and it was no different on Saturday. Derrick Rowland had five points as the Chargers scored the next 12 points to go up by 10 with 8:54 left to play. However, the Chargers missed nine of their last 11 field-goal attempts to allow Saint Anselm to come all the way back.

“Just one shot away,” Bailey said. “It was a close game and every basket counted in overtime.”

Bailey had a chance to ice the game when he went to the line with New Haven up two with 22.2 seconds remaining. Bailey, an 83-percent foul shooter, missed the front end of the 1 and 1 giving Paul the chance to force overtime with a layup with 5 seconds left in the second half. Tournament Most Outstanding Player Paul scored seven of his game-high 27 points in overtime to give the Hawks their ninth NE10 tournament title. Arbuckle, a freshman from Bristol, finished with 18 points.

“This never gets old,” Saint Anselm coach Keith Dickson said. “We’ve won a lot of these things, we never get tired of winning and we will take it.”

As the fifth and final seed in the NE10’s Southwest Division, the Chargers were on the road in each round. It took two overtimes to win at Bentley, two missed shots in the closing seconds by Southwest Division top seed Le Moyne to send the Chargers into the semifinals and then an epic threeovertime classic at Stonehill.

If the New Haven players were tired, it wasn’t evident early on. Davontrey Thomas had back to back baskets during an 8-0 run to put Chargers up 13-7.

The lead was 33-25 at halftime.

Perhaps it was fatigue from all the minutes or maybe the Saint Anselm defense, but the Chargers couldn’t secure the program’s ninth NCAA Division II tournament bid

New Haven lost in the NE-10 final for the second year in a row despite 25 points from junior guard Derrick Rowland and 14 from sophomore guard Quashawn Lane. The Chargers received a spot in the national tournament despite the loss in the 2019 championship game but a 15-15 record won’t get New Haven another at-large bid.

New Haven’s 2018-19 season ended with a loss at Saint Anselm in the second round of the NCAA tournament and at that time it was thought that the two powerhouse programs may have another postseason matchup coming soon.

“If you said at the beginning that New Haven would be at Saint Anselm for the championship, I would say that would be normal but their season was so disappointing that they had to get here through the tournament,” Dickson said. “Those kids have championship DNA, they are very tough.”

Bailey finished his career ranked eighth on the Chargers’ career scoring list with 1,780 points. Felizor is also among the five seniors on the New Haven roster so next year’s team will have a different look to it. In the meantime, the New Haven players can reflect on how close the Chargers came to becoming the first team in NE10 history to win four straight road games to capture the conference tournament title.

“We played our best basketball in the last four games and to make it to the championship game was an accomplishment,” Bailey said.