UMES Gets Revenge to Advance to the MEAC Semifinals

University of Maryland Eastern Shore guard Donchevell Nugent bringing the ball up the court against Morgan State.

By Wole Akinso
(@Wole_USS)

Norfolk, VA— In a revenge game, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) Fighting Hawks defeated the Morgan State Bears in the quarterfinals of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament, 80-64.  The last time these two teams met, Morgan State beat the Fight Hawks 68-61 on UMES hardwood.  The Fighting Hawks learned from that matchup and came up with a gameplan to secure a victory in the MEAC tournament quarterfinals.   UMES deplored a full court press, which helped the Hawks force 23 turnovers.  UMES coach Jason Crafton loved his team’s defensive effort.

“I’m really proud of our guys.  I thought we strapped up defensively.  We talked a lot before that nothing was going to be given for us.  We’re going to do what we already know how to do, which is to defend. We forced 23 turnovers tonight.  I thought that gave us a lot of opportunities to get some transition baskets, that we weren’t able to produce in our game against them last week at home.”

Seniors Zion Styles and Nate Pollard Jr. came to the post game press conference wearing a UMES T-shirt that had the word “tenacity” on it.  That word fits the makeup of the entire team versus the Bears but mostly forward Pollard Jr. He started the game slow but had a strong second half, scoring 10 points. Pollard talked about his mindset going into the second half.

“To keep going back to my roots do what I do.  Do what I need to do for this team, and they depend on me for a lot of things. And I trust myself, they trust me to do that. I just carry it out and let my game play for itself.”

Senior guard Styles played with a sense of urgency as well. He had the game high of 19 points.  Coach Crafton said, “Zion was tremendous, scoring the ball, drawing fouls.”

There was a big return for the Hawks.  Senior guard Ahamadou Fofana returned to the team after missing the last 13 games.  His defense, decision-making and ball handling gave the Fighting Hawks a spark against the Bears.

“He is a veteran point guard. He finds his spots.  He was able to get the ball ahead early and was able to get them [Morgan State] out of the press.  He was able to that tonight in his first game back coming from injury.  I was happy how he gutted it through.  I know he was feeling it a little bit, fatigue wise.  We leaned on him. He made some great decisions.  He’ll learn from some that weren’t great but happy to have him back,” said coach Crafton.

UMES is healthy and dangerous going into MEAC semifinals.  They have one overall goal.

“I’m proud to get this program out of the first round but we’re not done yet. We’re here to win this whole thing,” said coach Crafton.

Friday at 6pm ET, the fourth seed Fight Hawks take on the one seed Howard Bison.  In their recent battle, UMES fell to Howard 78-69 on the road.  They will be looking out for some payback.