Cougars surge past Seahawks with second-half strength

NEWPORT, R.I. (Saturday, December 9, 2023) -- The Salve Regina Seahawks dueled with the Clark University Cougars for a NEWMAC contest on Saturday, falling 79-62 when the buzzer sounded. 

The Seahawks tied the Cougars 31-31 with just 1:50 left to play in the first half, yet the Cougars forged ahead, slowing the Seahawks and maintaining their own prominent offense in the second half for a 79-62 final Cougar victory.

Clark improves to 8-1 overall and 2-0 in NEWMAC action while the Seahawks' fall to 5-5 overall and 0-2 in the conference. 

INSIDE THE MATCHUP
Final: Clark 79, Salve Regina 62
Records: Salve Regina (5-5,0-2 NEWMAC), Clark (8-1,2-0 NEWMAC)
All-Time Series: The Seahawks have met with the cougars twice before. During their first meeting on January 20, 1990, the Seahawks fell 86-64 and on January 16, 2003, it was a 100-70 defeat. Today's contest is the teams' first meeting in 20 years. 

SUMMARY:

• 1H - Clark was the first to get on the board with a made jump shot in the paint by Kekoa McArdle. It was a battle for three-pointers in the first period with Salve going 14-33 and Clark going 14-27 for field goals. Clark's 7-15 three-pointer record got them on top going into the half. With 4:26 remaining in the first half Declan Walmsley sunk a layup, followed by two jump shots and a layup from Sean Seymour. This run brought the score to an even 31-31. However, a solid jump shot from Cougars' Isaiah Taylor squashed the tie, leading to a 39-32 score to end the first half.
• 2H - The Cougars extended their lead to ten points by scoring the first three points of the second half with a jump shot outside the arc made by Reid Neumann. The cougars saw their largest run beginning at 11:42 on the clock. Seahawks' gradually worked to decrease the Cougar 24-point lead and it was Jojo Powers and Will Parisi who delivered the final six Salve Regina points of the day. 

NOTEWORTHY:

• Sean Seymour was Salve Regina's high scorer. Seymour contributed 14 points, going 5-8 with field goals and 4-4 at the line. 
• Clay Brochu was close behind Seymour with ten points and 4-11 in the field goal category. 
• Salve Regina earned 23 points off turnovers. Clark fell just below the Seahawks with 18 points off turnovers.
• The Cougars turned the ball over 20 times and the Seahawks came in with 14. 
• The Seahawks earned themselves a total of 15 fast break points. The Cougars saw 10 fast break points over the course of 40 minutes.
• Salve Regina posted a 72.7 free throw percentage, and the Cougars ended the day with 56.6%. 

THOUGHTS FROM COACH FOSTER:

"Our group played hard today unfortunately our execution was not at the level it needed to be," said head coach Sean Foster. "It was going to take a disciplined effort to execute our system and contain some excellent players.  Clark deserves credit for dictating the pace of the game and making difficult shots today and we were not able to respond in the manner we worked on. We will need to work extremely hard going forward and dedicate ourselves to carrying our practice habits over to game action to have success in league play."

ON THE HORIZON:
The Seahawks will host the Hawks of Roger Williams University on December 30 at 1 p.m. Roger Williams, a member of the Commonwealth Coast Conference, is a former conference foe for Salve Regina. The Hawks are 3-0 in the CCC in 2023 with wins over Western New England University, Suffolk University and Curry College.