A trio of seniors paced host Morrisville State College to a 83-65 North Eastern Athletic Conference (NEAC) win over visiting Wells College Wednesday night, lifting the Mustangs to a 15-8 overall record, 11-5 in conference play.
Center Tom Wilk (Cortland, N.Y.) led the Mustang charge with 19 points, adding five rebounds, while teammate Kucjok Ater (Syracuse, N.Y.) posted 14 points, adding a team high six rebounds and five assists to his tallies.
Jordan Prior (Cortland, N.Y.) rounded out the Mustang leaderboard with 13 points assisting another six.
Wells was led by Al Paul who posted a 17 point, five rebound performance in the losing effort with three additional teammates reaching double figures. Jonathan Hurtado registered 13 and assisted three, while teammate Shakeel Simmons added 12. Jordan Jean rounded out the Express leaders with 10 points.
Morrisville State jumped out to an early 7-0 lead behind back to back three’s from Prior, before Wells was able to post their first score of the night, nearly four minutes into the game.
Wells stayed within striking distance to the hosts, but a three by Anthony Javier (Bronx, N.Y.) with 8:46 to go in the opening period sparked a 9-4 Mustang spurt over the next three minutes to extend the Morrisville State lead to 10 with just under six minutes showing on the clock.
Following two free throws by Jean to make it a nine point game, Morrisville State then went on a 14-6 burst, increasing their lead to 18 at the break behind a 55.2 percent shooting performance.
In the second, the Mustangs kept pace offensively and reached as many as a 23 point advantage that proved to be too much for the visitors to overcome.
Morrisville State hit 30-of-59 shots from the floor on the night (50.8%), and drained 7-of-17 from long range (41.2%) to the visitors 44.7% on 21-of-47 shots.
The Mustangs again dominated the glass, holding a 41-25 margin over the Express in rebounding, including a 17-6 dominance on the offensive boards.
Morrisville State returns to the court Friday, hosting Gallaudet University at 5 p.m., and wrap up the regular season on Saturday against Penn St. Abington.