Late-game struggles at the free-throw line negated a spirited effort on the road Thursday night as the University of Maine men’s basketball team fell to Hartford 67-63 in an America East encounter at Chase Arena in West Hartford, Connecticut.
UMaine made just two of its last six free-throw tries over the game’s final 5:26 while Hartford scored its final six points from the line to pull out the victory.
Hartford, ranked third in the conference beginning the game, is 15-11 overall and 8-4 in America East.
UMaine (6-20, 3-9 AE) suffered its sixth loss of the season by five or fewer points. The Black Bears are idle this weekend before traveling to UMass Lowell for a 7 p.m. game on Wednesday, Feb. 21.
Jason Dunne led four Hartford scorers in double figures with 19 points, while J.R. Lynch scored 13 points and John Carroll and Travis Weatherington scored 10 points each.
Aaron Calixte scored a game-high 24 points for UMaine while Andrew Fleming added 16 points and Isaiah White contributed nine points and four steals.
Ilija Stojiljkovic grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds for the Black Bears, who outrebounded the Hawks 45-40.
Fleming scored six straight points while UMaine was holding Hartford scoreless for a 4:21 stretch of the second half as the Black Bears built a 60-56 lead with 5:26 left in the game.
Hartford came back to forge a 61-61 tie on Jason Dunne’s fourth 3-pointer of the game with 2:27 remaining, then took the lead for good when Hassan Attia — a 47.5 percent free-throw shooter entering the game — made two straight from the line with 1:26 to go.
Maine had two chances to tie or take the lead but came up empty, and Lynch made two free throws to make it a two-possession game with 16 seconds left.
Calixte canned a layup to pull UMaine within 65-63 with nine seconds remaining, but Lynch was fouled in the backcourt and made two more from the line with six seconds to play.
Calixte, who entered the contest averaging a team-leading 16.5 points per game, scored 17 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field and 4-of-4 from the free-throw line as UMaine rallied for a 36-36 halftime tie.
Hartford took a 16-15 lead on a 3-pointer by Weatherington with 13:39 left in the first half and built its lead to as many as seven points before UMaine rallied late in the period as the Hawks missed 12 of their last 13 shots.
Dennis Ashley’s 3-pointer with 57 seconds left in the half sent the teams into the locker room stalemated.
