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Daemen University Athletics

Western New York's Premier Division II Team
Fearless, Integrity, Effort, Respect, Commitment, Excitement
harris vs ub action 11.6.17
66
LIU Post LIUPM 6-10, 4-2 ECC
74
Winner Daemen DAEM 10-6, 4-2 ECC
LIU Post LIUPM
6-10, 4-2 ECC
66
Final
74
Daemen DAEM
10-6, 4-2 ECC
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
LIU Post LIUPM 30 36 66
Daemen DAEM 29 45 74

Game Recap: Men's Basketball | | By Mike Miranto, Sr. Associate A.D. for External Operations & Communications

Wildcats Grind Out Fifth Consecutive Win

AMHERST, N.Y. - Sophomore guard Breon Harris (Niagara Falls, N.Y.) posted career-highs of 16 points, seven rebounds and seven steals, and redshirt senior forward Aleks Miljenovic (Belgrade, Serbia) came off the bench to score a game-high 17 points to lead the Daemen College men's basketball team to a hard-fought 74-66 victory over Long Island University Post tonight in East Coast Conference action at Lumsden Gymnasium.

Daemen, winners of five straight games, improved to 10-6 on the season with tonight's win. At 4-2 in ECC play, the Wildcats moved into a tie with LIU Post (6-10, 4-2 ECC) for third place in the league standings.

Harris was dynamite at both ends of the floor while playing a career-best 37 minutes tonight. The 5-foot-9 guard shot 6-for-13 from the field and 2-for-4 from three-point range, and added four assists and a blocked shot to his stat line. Since being inserted into the starting lineup five games ago, Harris is averaging 11.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.6 steals per game, while shooting 54.5 percent from the field and 47.1 percent from three-point land.

Miljenovic has now hit for double figures in four consecutive games, including back-to-back 17-point outings. He canned 7-of-11 shot attempts and matched his season-high with nine rebounds in 23 minutes of action tonight.

The Wildcats also got solid efforts from Andrew Sischo (Guilderland, N.Y.), Jay Sarkis (Rochester, N.Y.) and Darius Garvin (Elmira, N.Y.). Sischo shot 7-for-13 from the field and collected 15 points, eight boards and two blocks. Sarkis, who didn't attempt a field goal in the first half, came to life in the second and totaled 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting to go with a game-high five assists. Sarkis made both of his three-point attempts in the second half, extending his personal streak of games with a three-point field goal to 21 in a row. Garvin reached double figures for the fifth time in the last six games with 11 points tonight.

Sophomore guard Jared Rivers (Westbury, N.Y.) and redshirt senior guard Aary Bibens (Bennington, Vt.) paced the Pioneers with 14 points apiece. Rivers, who came into the game as the No. 5 scorer in the ECC at nearly 17 points per game, was held to just one point in the second half. Freshman guard/forward Alonzo Ortiz-Traylor (Woodside, N.Y.) and senior guard Kyle Taylor-McLeggan (Jersey City, N.J.) each tossed in 10 points, and sophomore forward Kyle Doucette (Lynn, Mass.) chipped in with 11 rebounds, six points, three blocks and two steals.

Daemen took an early seven-point advantage (10-3), but LIU Post roared back with nine straight points, taking a 12-10 lead on Bibens' jumper at the 11:41 mark. Neither team led by more than five points for the remainder of the period. A 7-0 Daemen run late in the half, punctuated by Harris' steal and layup with just under a minute to play, gave Daemen a 29-27 edge. But, Rivers nailed his third three-pointer of the opening stanza just moments later and the Pioneers took a 30-29 lead into halftime.

In a second half that featured seven lead changes, Daemen was the last team standing after outscoring the guests 45-36 in the period. With the score knotted at 49-49 and less than eight minutes to play, Daemen embarked on a game-changing 17-6 spurt. Sarkis and Harris played pivotal roles, scoring or assisting on seven of the eight Daemen field goals in the run. The lone bucket not directly attributed to one or the other was set up by a Harris steal. The run was capped when Harris slithered through the LIU Post defense and dropped off a nifty assist to Miljenovic whose layup put Daemen on top 66-55 with 2:05 to play. LIU Post would get no closer than eight points for the remainder of the contest with Daemen shooting 6-of-7 at the charity stripe in the final minute to close things out.

A matchup of the two best defensive teams in the conference, in terms of field goal percentage allowed, went the way of the Wildcats as Daemen limited the Pioneers to just 38.7 percent shooting in the game (24-for-62). The Wildcats enjoyed 48.4 percent field-goal shooting (30-for-62), including an efficient 7-for-13 (53.8%) from downtown. 

LIU Post managed a 14-5 advantage in second-chance points, but Daemen held big edges in points in the paint (40-18), points off turnovers (21-7) and fast-break points (16-3).

With the win, Daemen improved to 6-2 at home this season. Since the start of the 2011-12 season, Daemen is 76-12 in games played at Lumsden Gymnasium.

Daemen closes out a brief three-game homestand later this weekend when New York Institute of Technology comes to town for a Sunday matinee. Tip-off is slated for 3 p.m.

 
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