AUBURN — After a seven-hour commute just to get to the game, the Paul Smith’s College men’s basketball team had to get rid of their “bus legs” in a Yankee Small College Conference quarterfinal at Central Maine Community College on Saturday. 

The Bobcats quickly dissolved a deficit following an early timeout, but near the end of a back-and-forth battle they ran out of gas and Central Maine prevailed 95-80 at Kirk Hall.

The fourth-seeded Mustangs now advance to face top-seeded NHTI next weekend in a semifinal matchup at Southern Maine Community College in Gorham, at place that head coach Dave Gonyea said his team is comfortable playing.

CMCC looked comfortable in its own gym for the first couple minutes of the game, jumping out to an 8-2 start before Bobcats coach Josh Clemens called a timeout. 

“We got a team composed of mostly juniors that we don’t really have to talk about it,” Clemens said. “It’s just, eventually you’ll wake up.” 

After falling behind 9-2, the Bobcats went on an 8-0 run to take a 10-9 lead.

Then the battle began.

The two teams played a pair of close games during the regular season, both CMCC wins by a combined seven points, including an overtime victory. 

Both teams were without key players, but the Mustangs had the advantage of a larger bench.

“I think it was just depth on the bench. We were down three very key players to us. We traveled here with only 10, so I think it just comes down to last man standing,” Clemens said. “I know (CMCC coach Dave) Gonyea’s team was in the same situation — down a couple crucial players — just some injuries this time of year, so both of our teams dealing with some different rotations, next-man-up mentality, and we just kind of ran out of gas.” 

The Mustangs took a 41-40 lead into halftime, despite shooting just 35% to Paul Smith’s 55.6%. A 7-1 advantage in 3-pointers made helped CM. 

Central Maine came out of halftime sloppy, and kept turning the ball over. The Mustangs’ first field-goal attempt of the second half didn’t come until Charles Cedre’s 3-point shot 2:15 in, and that was a miss. Tyheim Burgess got the offensive rebound, though, and made one of two free throws to get CMCC on the board and cut Paul Smith’s lead to 45-42. 

The Mustangs eventually took the lead back. Mark McDonald added to it with a long 3 to make it 56-51, and then later a difficult layup for a 60-53 advantage. 

“We get up a lot of shots. Every practice we make at least 150 shots, so it’s a confidence thing,” McDonald said. “So we know that just because we miss one shot doesn’t mean that the next one’s not going in.” 

An Adam Seguin transition layup with six minutes left whittled the Bobcats’ deficit down to 73-71, and then Sterling Scott had a layup of his own a minute later to get back within 78-75. 

The Mustangs then went on a 5-0 run with a reverse layup by Matt Attard and a trey by Khalid Ibn. After a Bobcats free throw, Luke McCusker made a layup, and Ibn assisted on layups by Nicolas Dierynck and Malik Farley, to stretch the lead to 89-76. 

“We went on (the 5-0 run) and we just took off from there,” Gonyea said. “And I think a lot of that was just wearing them down, and being able to force them into bad mistakes, I think really was the difference.” 

Despite giving up 80 points — after allowing just 59 and 72 (in overtime) to the Bobcats in the regular season — McDonald said the team’s defense was “really the highlight of the game today.” 

Paul Smith’s committed 22 turnovers, leading to 15 CMCC points, and the shooting dropped to 44% by the end of the game, including just 3-for-20 from behind the 3-point line. 

“We forced them into shots that they didn’t want to take,” Gonyea said. “But we created a lot of turnovers as well. And think that really was one of the keys to the game.” 

Scott’s 29 points for the Bobcats was the game-high. McDonald led CMCC with 20, while Dierynck and Attard each added 16. 

Ibn, a former Edward Little High School standout, scored nine, including seven in the second half.

Gonyea and McDonald both singled out Wil Sorenson, a Mountain Valley High School graduate, who contributed four points, three rebounds and an assist in just six minutes of action, but Gonyea said they were “good minutes.” McDonald said Sorenson’s “great energy off the bench … was a huge turning point in the game.” 

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