The winning streak for the University of Vermont men's basketball team is now at eight games after a 67-56 road victory against a plucky University of New Hampshire team last night.
Trae Bell-Haynes led all scorers with 20 points and Ernie Duncan added 17 but the Catamounts couldn't shake the Wildcats until going on a 19-6 run in the second half to break a 39-39 tie. The win improves UVM's overall record to 15-5 and they're still undefeated in America East play at 5-0 against conference opponents.
It was a tight games as well but a different result for the UVM women taking on their UNH counterparts at Patrick Gym. The Catamounts took a one point lead on a 3-pointer by Candace Wright with just 45 seconds left in regulation, but UNH regained the lead for good with just ten clicks left on the clock when Kat Fogarty nailed a jumper for two of her game high 21 points and the Wildcats held on for a 52-49 victory. Hanna Crymble led UVM scorers with 20 points.
Elsewhere in women's college hoops, the Norwich Cadets went up against one of the best teams in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference,dropping a 56-48 decision to the Suffolk University Rams in Boston last night. Thetford Center's Shyann Josler had an outstanding game for the Cadets, throwing down 25 points but it wasn't enough to stop the Rams, who haven't lost to a GNAC foe to this point in the season.
On the pro hardwood, the Philadelphia 76ers got some revenge on the Boston Celtics for a loss over in London last week, winning 89-80 in Boston behind a double double from Joel Embiid, who poured in 26 points and hauled down a career best 16 rebounds. One caveat for Philly's sixth win in their last seven games is that the Celtics were without the services of their best player, Kyrie Irving, who was out resting a sore shoulder. The Celts have now lost two in a row following a seven game winning streak.
Boston's hockey team fared better last night, the Bruins now running their unbeaten-in-regulation streak to fifteen games with a 5-2 win over the NY Islanders in Brooklyn. The Isles opened the scoring but the Bruins roared back with four unanswered goals highlighted by a hat trick from Patrice Bergeron and with a pretty large contingent of Bruins fans in attendance the Isles had to do their best to ignore the steady stream of touques that floated down to settle on their home ice marking the feat.
Bergeron is on a tear this season, with 19 goals in 39 games, and the goal Bergeron scored to separate fans from their hats was a thing of true hockey beauty as Brad Marchand collected a pass off the boards in the Islanders zone, spun around in one motion and made for the net before being knocked to the ice. But while he was down Marchand swept the puck backwards to Bergeron in the high slot and even though he had his back to the net when he collected the pass, #37 did his own spin-o-rama move from there, whipping around to laser the puck behind Jaroslav Halak, who appeared never to have seen the shot.
Ryan Spooner scored and added an assist, and back-up goalie Anton Khudobin made 22 saves to get the win in net. So the Bruins have picked up at least one point in 15 straight games, are five points clear of Toronto for second place in the Atlantic division and are just five points shy of first place Tampa Bay as they approach the all-star break. Next up for Boston is a chance to take three games from their biggest rivals in an eight day span when they skate against the Canadiens in Montreal Saturday night.
Elsewhere, it was Eric Lindros night in Philadelphia, where the Flyers honored one of the premier power forwards of the 1990's and then stirred the crowd with a rousing come from behind 3-2 overtime victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs built a 2-0 lead in the second period on goals from two fourth-line muckers, Connor Brown and Frederik Gauthier, but the Flyers tied things up early in the third with goals by Nolan Patrick and Wayne Simmonds, and then sent the crowd home happy with an overtime winner by Sean Couturier. The Leafs after a hot start to the year are scuffling now, just 2-3-4 in their last nine games and they haven't won in regulation since late December. Goalie Frederik Andersen wasn't pulling any punches about that, calling out his mates for a lack of effort, adding that if Toronto wants to be playing meaningful hockey later, they need to figure things out.
At Madison Square Garden Rick Nash scored two goals for the second straight game and Pavel Buchnevich scored the game winner to push the NY Rangers past the Buffalo Sabres 4-3.
At the Australian Open tennis tournament, third seeded Grigor Dimitrov advanced to the fourth round, beating Andrey Rublev, and Rafael Nadal cruised into round four with a straight sets win. Best match of the day on the men's side is a thriller still in progress between Nick Kyrgios and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, with Kyrgios now up two sets to one.
On the women's side a great third round match is looming between Angelique Kerber and Maria Sharipova, and the 15-year old surprise of the tournament Marta Kostyuk has finally been ousted by fellow Ukranian Elina Svitolina.
