Men's Basketball forces OT but fall to Daniel Webster 79-75

By TOM KING

Staff Writer

NASHUA - For a short time early Friday morning, it appeared the Eagles of Daniel Webster were going to let the madness get to them.

Daris Cosby had flipped the ball up to the ceiling at the Rivier University Muldoon Center, thinking his Eagles had wrapped up a win in the second edition of the annual season opening Midnight Madness game between the two city collegiate rivals.

But lo and behold, there was still time left on the clock - five-tenths of a second, to be exact. Rivier used the time wisely, sending the game into overtime tied at 68 on Kywane Thomas' ally-oop bucket.

However, the Eagles, who were led by Eric Webster's 26 points - nine in overtime- recovered nicely in OT to avenge last year's defeat, 79-75.

"You've got to move on," Eagles coach Dave Faucher said. "Usually in those situations, it's not what happens to you, it's how you react to it. I was looking at some blank faces, like 'What happened?'.

"But we did get a decent start in overtime, and this time when we had the lead, we executed the press break better."

The Eagles, who had a commanding 41-23 lead at the half, actually trailed 73-72 with 2:06 to play in the extra period after Rivier's Nick Walch (13 points) hit two free throws. It was Riv's first lead since they were up 13-9 early in the game.

But Webster hit three freebies and a lauyup to put the Eagles up 77-73 with 26.7 seconds left, and ended the game with a driving slam.

"We went to him," Faucher said. "I knew (the Raiders) would make a run, but we looked like the quicker team."

"We just played so hard," Webster, a native of Oakland, Cal. said. "Just the crowd in general was so loud, if you weren't focused, it was throwing you off."

Webster was a big reason the Eagles had gotten off to a great first half advantage, and the Raiders senior big man, Tom Poitras, was the big reason Rivier was able to come back. Poitras finished with 26 points and six rebounds. He hit two big 3-pointers as the Raiders were down 61-48 with just under six minutes to play.

"We dug deep, talking about defense, defense, defense," Poitras said. "Score-stop-score. We just focused on defense. It was a fun night, fun atmosphere. Wish we had won, but ..."

"We missed shots in the first half, and it affected our defense," Riv coach Dave Morissette. "I knew we were a lot better than that. We've just got to get better defensively."

Thomas finished with 14 points while the Eagles had four in double figures as Cosby (19 points), Kevin Perez (15) and Ray Farmer (14) followed Webster.

Meanwhile, Morissette said he knew there was time left when Cosby flipped the ball near the end of regulation. Cosby was surprised.

"A ref said there was .5 seconds left, and we had to go to overtime," he said. "What a crazy game."

Madness - but this time the kind the Eagles enjoyed