DUDLEY, Mass. (Feb. 17) – The Nichols College men’s basketball team battled its way back after being down for nearly 38 minutes to snatch a victory in a game against Regis College Wednesday night on the Nichols’ campus. The final score read 62-57 in favor of the Nichols College Bison. Junior guard Justin Aldrich (Douglas, Mass.) put the Bison ahead, 56-55 with 2:10 left, with a three-pointer as the shot clock expired to give them their first lead in the game. With the conference victory, Nichols improves to 13-10 and 6-6 in the conference, while the Pride drop to 9-15 and 5-7 in the conference.
Phil Alibrandi led all scorers in the game with 27 points for Regis, including a 12-for-15 performance from the foul-line. Derrick Neal had 10 points for the Pride as the other Regis player in double figures and James Cooper hauled in 10 rebounds to go with eight points.
Nichols was led by sophomore Pete Atkins’ (Gainesville, Fla.) team-high 14 points and a near double-double for junior Chris Paquin (Barre, Mass.) with nine points and 11 rebounds. Senior guard Bryan Riley (West Boylston, Mass.) had 13 points and senior forward Ryan Wilcox (West Granby, Conn.) had 11 points to join Atkins in double-figure scoring.
Regis College controlled the play in the first half never giving up the lead after the score was tied at five 4:35 into the game. Alibrandi put in 13 points for the Pride in the first half as they saw a lead as large as nine in the half. Nichols hit a shooting slump in the first half, shooting just 27.6% from the field in the first half including 1-9 from behind the arc. Ryan Wilcox led the Bison with nine points in the first half, but the Bison went into the intermission trailing 30-22.
The Bison picked up the pace right from the get-go in the second half matching their first half points total in the first nine minutes of the second half. Nichols tightened the gap to one point with 8:49 remaining with a layup by first year forward Kyle Mascilak (Sparta, N.J.), but Alibrandi and Neal looked to hold the lead as they held off the Bison’s run scoring the Pride’s next nine points.
Nichols continued to battle back and finally took the lead with Justin Aldrich’s three-pointer at 2:10 remaining to put the score at 56-55. The Pride answered right back with a Darrin Kelley (South Dennis, Mass.) layup to take the lead at 57-56. Ryan Wilcox then received a pass down low from Paquin and finished with a layup to put the Bison back on top 58-57 with 1:17 remaining in the game. After that Nichols never relinquished the lead again. Michael Salis (Nashua, N.H.) hit two big free-throws with 57 seconds remaining to put the Bison up by three and they went on to win 62-57.
Nichols was a completely different team in the second half, more than doubling their field goal percentage to 56.5% and hitting four three-pointers in the second half. The Pride led in points off turnovers, 16-8, and second chance points 19-7, while the Bison’s bench outscored the Pride’s 16-3.
Nichols finishes off their regular season in a home game Saturday at 3:00 pm against the University of New England. The Bison will honor seniors Riley, Paquin and Wilcox prior to the game. Regis also finishes their regular season Saturday at home at 3:00 pm against Anna Maria College.
Box Score