Springfield, Mass. – January 27, 2024 – The Springfield College men's basketball team fell to Wheaton College, 70-56, on Saturday evening in a New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) contest held inside Emerson Gymnasium.

Wheaton improved to 11-8 overall and to 5-6 in NEWMAC play, while Springfield dropped to 6-13, 3-7.

Springfield was guided offensively by graduate student Joe Hoch (South Ozone Park, N.Y.), who tallied 15 points in addition to seven steals, four rebounds and an assist. Senior Nick Bray (Hartford, Conn.) tallied 14 points, two rebounds and two assists, while first-year Jeremy Brown (Queensland, Australia) played 24 minutes off the bench and added eight points, two assists and a rebound to his stat line today.

Wheaton's Dimetri Iafrate nearly tallied a triple-double with ten points, 11 rebounds and nine assists to power the Lyons offensive efforts.

Wheaton scored the first 11 points of the game before a layup from Curitss Blische (Barkhamsted, Conn.) three minutes into the contest gave Springfield's its first points of the contest. The Lyons went on a 12-5 run over the next four minutes – a run that was capped by back-to-back three point buckets from Jaden Keliher and Eoin Morrissey as the score stood at 23-7 in favor of the hosts with 12 minutes left in the half.

Later in the stanza, Wheaton held Springfield scoreless for over four minutes of play to build its lead to 19 at 32-13 with 6:07 left on the clock. Back-to-back field goals from Hoch broke Wheaton's run before the Lyons outscored the Pride 7-2 over the final 4:58 as the score stood at 39-20 in favor of the hosts at the break.

Springfield outscored Wheaton 12-8 over the first six minutes of the second half as Hoch tallied seven of those points and later put together a brief 7-2 spurt that began with a trey from Xoren Livingston (Wayland, Mass.) and was capped on a pair of shots from the charity stripe from Josh Hartley (Brooklyn, N.Y.). Wheaton, despite the Pride scoring nine of the game's final 11 points, held its double digit advantage to account for the 70-56 final.

In the second half, Springfield shot at a 41.4-percent clip from the floor and made six shots from behind the arc. Wheaton took advantage of 20 Springfield turnovers and turned them into 20 points.

Springfield will return home to host Salve Regina University on Wednesday, January 31 at 7:00 pm.

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