MILTON, Mass. – Freshman Matt Vartanian (Salem, N.H.) poured in a career-high 24 points on 11-of-13 shooting to help pace the Wentworth Institute of Technology men's basketball team to an 81-54 victory over Curry in a Commonwealth Coast Conference contest Wednesday night.
Winners of two of their last three and three of their last five contests the Leopards improve to 5-9 overall and 3-4 in CCC play while the Colonels fall to 1-13 (0-7).
Wentworth used long-range shooting to take an early, 6-4 lead as junior Ben Kizel (Short Hills, N.J.) and senior Dan DeVaux (Wethersfield, Conn.) each connected from beyond the arc. Curry tied the game at 8-all with 14:55 left in the half on a freshman Kieran Carroll (Greenwich, Conn.) basket. Vartanian and DeVaux scored the next five points to give the visitors a 13-8 lead, however Curry responded with five points of its own to tie the game.
Junior Matthew Dean (Gilford, N.H.) hit a three and junior Jason Ganley (Northbridge, Mass.) hit one of two free throws to make it 17-13 at the halfway point of the first half. However, a 7-2 Curry spurt – with five of the seven points coming from senior James Pina (Warwick, R.I.) – gave the hosts a 20-19 lead with 7:19 to play.
A DeVaux jumper gave Wentworth the lead back and started a 9-0 run which gave the Black & Gold a 28-20 lead with 3:31 left. DeVaux had five points during the run.
Carroll scored four straight points to cut the lead to 28-24, however DeVauz hit back-to-back three pointers to make it 34-24 and Wentworth would lead 34-24 at the break.
An 8-2 Wentworth run, capped off by a Vartanian three-point play, gave the Leopards a 42-27 lead early in the second half. Curry scored six of the next nine points, making it 45-33 with 15:29 left before junior Cesar Fulcar (Watertown, Mass.) drained a three which started a 19-5 run and gave the Leopards a 64-38 lead. Vartanian scored eight straight points during the run.
Wentworth led by as many as 29 with under four minutes left before ending the game with its largest margin of victory since defeating Emmanuel, 84-54, on Nov. 16.
In addition to Vartanian's 24 points and seven rebounds, DeVaux added 22, including going 6-for-12 from behind the arc. Kizel scored eight points while Ganley and Fulcar had seven apiece. Thirty-two of the Leopards' points came off of 21 Curry turnovers and the Leopards held the Colonels to 33.3 shooting from the floor.
Carroll led the Colonels with 10 points to go along with nine rebounds.
Wentworth hosts Salve Regina on Saturday.
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