Springfield, Mass. – January 3, 2024 – Springfield College graduate student Joe Hoch (South Ozone Park, N.Y.) registered a career high 23 points as the Pride topped Wheaton College, 71-61, in New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) action tonight in Blake Arena.

Springfield improved to 4-7 overall and to 1-1 in NEWMAC play, while Wheaton dipped to 6-4, 1-2.

In addition to his career best 23 points, Hoch tallied five rebounds, three steals and one assist. The graduate student shot at a 7-for-11 clip from the floor, went 3-for-5 from behind the arc and a perfect 6-for-6 at the charity stripe. Junior Gary Bess (Miami, Fla.) added 12 points and seven boards for the Pride, while classmate Curtiss Blische (Barkhamsted, Conn.) led the way for Springfield with ten rebounds in the win. Wheaton was paced by Eoin Morrissey, who registered a ten point, 11 rebound double-double in the setback.

Wheaton scored the first four points of the contest on a pair of layups before Springfield took its first lead at 9-8 following a shot from behind the arc by Bess 6:04 into the game. The Lyons quickly answered with a 14-6 run over the next four minutes to give Wheaton its largest lead of the game of seven points at 22-15. The run was sparked by four points from both Morrissey and Tarmo Tari.

Wheaton called a timeout with 7:14 to play in the opening half and from that point on until the halftime buzzer, Springfield outscored the Lyons by a 20-5 margin which included the final seven points of the stanza for a 35-27 lead at the break. The run was highlighted by ten points from Hoch, which included a buzzer beater trey from near midcourt. Springfield shot at a 50.0-percent clip from the floor (12-for-24) and a 62.5-percent clip from behind the arc (5-for-8) over the first 20 minutes of tonight's contest.

Springfield scored eight of the first ten points of the second half and ballooned its advantage to 14 points, its largest lead of the game, at 43-29 following a layup from Hoch off a pass from sophomore John Paulino (New Bedford, Mass.) with 13:19 to play.

The Pride maintained its double-digit margin for the majority of the second stanza before a brief 8-2 spurt from Wheaton with five minutes to play cut the visitors deficit to eight at 53-45 following a three point bucket by Khaled Thaher. That was as close as Wheaton got as Springfield knocked down 6-of-8 free throws down the stretch to secure the ten point conference win, 71-61.

The win for Springfield snapped a three game skid against Wheaton dating back to January of 2022.

As a team, Springfield shot 47.1-percent from the floor (24-for-51), 54.5-percent from behind the arc (6-for-11) and 60.7-percent from the free throw line (17-for-28). The Pride tallied 32 points in the paint, 21 points off the bench and turned 13 Wheaton turnovers into 12 points. Springfield held the visiting Lyons to just a 29.9-percent shooting clip from the floor and a 21.2-percent margin from long distance.

Springfield will return to NEWMAC play on Saturday, January 6 with a road trip to Salve Regina University. The 1:00 pm meeting between the Pride and the Seahawks will be the first between the squads since January 2, 2010.

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