Bulldogs fall to Mids, 69-59, Monday

O'SHEA, KONDRATYEV PACE BULLDOGS DESPITE 69-59 LOSS AT NAVY MONDAY NIGHT

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Sophomore Joe O'Shea (Burlington, Vt.) scored a career-high 15 points and senior Vlad Kondratyev (Nikolayev, Ukraine) added 11 more with a game-best nine rebounds, but a 3-pointer from Kendall Knorr would solidify a late Navy lead as the Mids topped the Bryant University men's basketball team, 69-59, Monday night at Alumni Hall.

The second half was a back-and-forth battle between the Bulldogs (5-4) and the Midshipmen (6-6), with the lead changing hands seven times. Bryant entered the frame with a 29-28 halftime advantage, but Navy took over the lead 2:28 into the second and held onto it for the first eight minutes before sophomore Dyami Starks (Duluth, Minn.) took it back, 41-40, with a deep 3-pointer.

But when junior Corey Maynard (Adelaide, Australia) missed a breakaway layup off a Navy turnover that he created, Knorr responded with a three the other way to go up, 43-41, and the Mids took over the game's momentum. The home team would score seven quick points for a 50-45 lead with eight to play, but Maynard came back with a trey to cut the lead back to two.

Kondratyev tied the game from the line, 53-53, as the clock ticked under six minutes to play, but Navy would score twice more for a four-point edge and never look back, upping that lead to seven on another Knorr corner three that gave Navy its biggest lead to that point, 62-55, with under two minutes to play en route to the 69-59 final.

Bryant shot just 33.3 percent in the second half after starting out the game 47.6 percent in the first 20 minutes. Navy, which posted a 45.8 percent shooting clip in the first, went 13-for-19 in the second stanza to shoot 55.8 percent on the game.

Four Bulldogs recorded double-digit points for just the second time this season despite the fact that Bryant was playing without injured fifth-year senior captain and starting point guard Frankie Dobbs (Berea, Ohio). O'Shea's game-high 15 points came off 4-for-5 shooting from the floor (2-for-3 from 3-point range) and a 5-for-6 mark from the free throw line, while Maynard added 13, Kondratyev chipped in 11 and junior Alex Francis (Harlem, N.Y.) finished the game with 10 points.

Bryant dominated on the glass, 34-24, with Kondratyev's contest-high nine coming with the help of six offensive boards, off which he scored seven of the team's 13 second-chance points.

In the first half, the Bulldogs trailed from the start until the 8:36 mark, when an eight-point swing put the visitors up, 18-16. The run, which kept Navy off the board for four full minutes, started with a 3-point play from Francis, and O'Shea followed with a wide open trey from the right side to knot the score at 16-16. Kondratyev would muscle out a huge putback seconds later for the two-point advantage.

But a Navy timeout cooled off the Bryant offense, and the Mids reciprocated with the same scoreless streak for the Bulldogs until O'Shea hit his second triple of the night for a 21-20 edge, setting a new career high just 15:24 into the game.

Bryant ripped off eight points in the final three minutes of the half, the last four coming from Maynard, to take a 29-26 lead, but the Mids would get the last bucket of the frame to send the teams into the intermission just a point apart, 29-28.

Monday's contest marked the final game before the start of final exams, and the Bulldogs will have 11 days off before returning to the court for a final pre-holiday outing Dec. 22 at home against Dartmouth College.