Monmouth won both of their contests on the road against Manhattan this past week. On Friday, they beat the Jaspers 70-65 while they narrowly escaped them by a score of 71-69 in overtime on Saturday.
The Hawks were led by their seniors on Friday as three of them scored in double digits. Melik Martin, Deion Hammond and George Papas scored 18, 16 and 14 points respectively.
Martin started the game by scoring the first five points giving the blue and white an early 5-0 lead. The Hawks would lead the majority of the first half and a late Hammond three would give them a four-point lead at the end of the first half.
The Hawks picked up right where they left off in the second half as they started out with an 11-2 run. Monmouth held a sizeable lead for the majority of the final 20 minutes as it was not until the final couple minutes Manhattan started to claw back but it proved to be too little too late as Monmouth outlasted the Jaspers by five points.
Martin was a single rebound shy of a double-double. “I’ve been coached a lot more to crash the boards on the offensive end and get us some more possessions,” said Martin. This is Martin’s 17th career game in double digits in the score column, and his sixth time in the last seven games.
Hammond drained his 260th three-pointer of his career in the blue and white, tying the program’s record for the most triples made by a Hawk in their time with the program.
Monmouth outshot their opponent as they made 47 percent from the field compared to 36 percent from their opponent. The Hawks’ defense also held the Jaspers to under 25 percent from behind the arc.
In their second matchup, Hammond would pass the 30-year-old record for most threes as a member of the Monmouth Hawks. “I’m super excited that I got the record that’s stood for 30 years,” said Hammond. “That’s amazing to me. There’s nothing to do now but keep pushing. I was just happy to hit a shot in the game, and I started feeling it after they called timeout and we went back to the huddle and coaches were really excited for me.”
“Deion had a bunch of good looks tonight and he knocked down the one at the end of the shot clock,” said head coach King Rice. “We’re super happy because that’s a big-time record to get and maybe it will last another 30 years.
Hammond led the Hawks with a 15-point performance and Martin finished with his second double-double in three games.
Monmouth was able to capitalize off Manhattan’s mistakes as they scored 24 points off turnovers. The Hawks were down four however but were able to erase that lead by the end of regulation sending the game to overtime at a score of 61-61.
Late into overtime, Martin drained a triple from the wing to give the Hawks a four-point cushion. This would prove to be enough for the Hawks to earn their 10th win on the season, the first team in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) to reach this mark.
Coming up next for the Hawks is a two-game homestand against Fairfield. Their opponent currently sits on the bottom of the MAAC standings with a record of 3-8. The times have yet to be announced for Friday and Saturday’s matchups at OceanFirst Bank Center.
PHOTOS COURTESY of Monmouth Athletics
