Austin Williams led five Hartford scorers in double figures as the Hawks defeated the University of Maine men’s basketball team 75-65 in America East play at Chase Arena in West Hartford, Connecticut, on Wednesday night.
The win was the fourth straight for the Hawks, now 10-16 overall and 7-6 in conference play.
UMaine drops to 5-20, 2-12 in America East.
Williams added seven rebounds and three steals for coach John Gallagher’s club, which rallied from a 17-10 deficit to lead 37-35 after a back-and-forth first half despite 10 points from UMaine’s Adefolarin Adetogun.
The Hawks stretched the advantage to as many as 11 points on three occasions, including 55-44 on a basket by Traci Carter with 10:45 remaining.
UMaine rallied as close as 62-58 on a basket by redshirt junior forward Stephane Ingo with 5:24 left but Hartford answered with seven unanswered points, a run that concluded on a four-point play by Carter as he was fouled while making a 3-pointer to restore the Hawks to a 69-58 cushion with 2:52 left in the game.
Carter finished with 14 points and four assists for Hartford, while Moses Flowers had 14 points and six rebounds, Briggs McClain scored 12 points and David Shriver had 10 points and six rebounds.
Junior guard Maks Klanjscek led UMaine with 11 points. Ingo added 10 points, 13 rebounds, four blocked shots and two steals, while Ja’Shonte Wright-McLeish and Adetogun also scored 10 points each and Vukasin Masic had nine points.
UMaine was hurt by poor long-range shooting, as the Black Bears made just 6 of 23 3-point tries, or 26.1 percent.
UMaine resumes play at 1 p.m. Sunday when it hosts New Jersey Institute of Technology at Memorial Gymnasium on the Orono campus.
