GALLOWAY, N.J. — Bates College senior Graham Safford had 30 points and 10 assists as the Bobcats won their first-ever NCAA Division III Men’s Basketball Tournament game with a 92-80 defeat of St. Vincent College Friday evening at Stockton University.
The Bobcats (20-6) will take on host Stockton or Endicott on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Stockton Sports Center in a second-round matchup.
The win ties the 2014-15 squad with the 2006-07 squad for the most victories in a season in program history.
The Bearcats of St. Vincent end their season at 22-7. SVC is 0-3 in its NCAA tournament history, all in the past three years.
Safford made a career-high 16 of 19 free throws. Guard Mike Boornazian pitched in with 22 points on 9-of-13 shooting. Guard Billy Selmon scored eight points, all in the first half.
Sophomore center Malcolm Delpeche led Bates to a 42-31 rebounding edge, collecting a career-high-tying 16 boards before fouling out of the game with 2:42 left. Delpeche came up with a pair of big hoops after twin brother Marcus Delpeche (14 points, 5 rebounds) first fouled out with 5:03 left.
St. Vincent forward Sean Kett led four Bearcats in double figures with 26 points, 24 of them scored in the second half.
Bates led by as many as 22 points, at 60-38 with 11:46 left in the second half, but SVC scored 37 points over the next 10 minutes, drawing within nine points at 84-75 with 1:57 to go. Kett scored 19 points in that span while sinking 11-of-12 free throws.
Baseball
Florida 5, Maine 0
At Gainesville, Florida, sophomore righthander Logan Shore allowed only five hits and didn’t give up a run in eight innings to stifle the Black Bears.
Shore struck out five and didn’t walk a batter while improving to 3-0 as the Gators upped their record to 12-2.
Maine freshman righthander Justin Courtney (0-4) was reached for four runs and five hits in three innings while walking four and striking out one. Senior righthander Jacob Gosselin-Deschesnes finished and pitched five innings of three-hit baseball, walking one and striking out two.
Maine slipped to 4-10.
Luke Morrill singled twice for the Black Bears while Sam Balzano, Alex Cabrera, Chris Garabedian and Shane Bussey each chipped in with a single.
The Gators took advantage of three Maine errors to score four unearned runs in the second inning. Buddy Reed had an RBI single in the inning and Harrison Bader each had RBI singles in the inning and JJ Schwarz had a sacrifice fly.
Christian Hicks blasted a home run to right center in the sixth to account for Florida’s other run.
The two teams meet again at 4 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.
Softball
Maine 5, Robert Morris 1
At Clearwater, Florida, Maine’s Alexis Bogdanovich gave up just one run while scattering seven hits to lift the Black Bears to victory.
Bogdanovich struck out six while improving to 4-2 and the Bears upped their record to 5-7. Robert Morris is now 8-7.
Felicia Lennon sparked the Maine offense with two hits, an RBI and scored a run. EmJ Fogel and Erika Leonard chipped in with RBI singles.
Maine is back in action with games against Penn (1:45 p.m.) and Bowling Green (4:45 p.m.) on Saturday.
Women’s Basketball
UNE 54, Catholic U. 50
At Madison, New Jersey, senior Kelly Coleman scored a game-high 20 points and junior Meghan Gribbin made 5-of-6 free throws in the final 22 seconds as the University of New England defeated Catholic University of America (D.C.) in the first round of the NCAA Division III Women’s Basketball Championship at Fairleigh Dickinson University-Florham.
The Nor’easters (24-5) move into the second round of the tournament for a third consecutive season, and will meet the winner between FDU-Florham and Johnson & Wales University on Saturday at 5 p.m.
Junior Alanna Vose gave the Nor’easters a lead they would not relinquish with about 10 minutes left in the game with a jumper in the lane, and after a steal by Vose, Gribbin fed Coleman for a fastbreak layup. A missed shot by the Cardinals had UNE off to the races, and a hesitation move driving down the left side put Gribbin is position for a hoop-plus-one. In a span of 73 seconds, Big Blue had surged to a 42-36 cushion.
UNE junior Lauren Hayden chipped in with 12 points, while Vose and Gribbin had nine and eight, respectively.
Josephine Migash paced Catholic (19-9) with 12 points and nine rebounds.
Bowdoin 70, Babson 57
At Brunswick, Bowdoin never trailed en route to the victory over Babson in the first round of the NCAA Division III Tournament.
The Polar Bears improve to 24-4 and advance to Saturday’s second-round game against Ithaca at 7 p.m. The Beavers end their campaign with a record of 20-9.
Sara Binkhorst came alive in the second half for Bowdoin, scoring 13 of her game-high 19 points to help the Polar Bears pull away. Marle Curle had 16 points, 10 rebounds and five assists for the Polar Bears, who got a big 13 points and six rebounds off the bench from Aly Silfen.
Giovanna Pickering led Babson with 17 points while Linnett Graber had 14. Jennifer Narlee added eight points and nine rebounds while Taylor Russell pitched in 12 off the bench.
Bowdoin held a 43-32 edge in rebounding and shot 39 percent for the game. Babson connected on just 36 percent of its shots, and struggled from long distance, hitting just 2 of 14 from beyond the arc.