The University of Maine men’s basketball team pulled out a 61-56 victory in a back-and-forth contest against Duquesne University in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night.
Senior guard A.J. Lopez finished with a game-high 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting from the field for the Black Bears, who improved to 7-5 on the season.
Graduate student guard Kellen Tynes finished with 12 points, 4 rebounds and 4 steals while senior guard Quion Burns rounded out the top-three scorers for UMaine with 10 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists.
Duquesne, a member of the Atlantic 10 conference, dropped to 2-8 on the season. Tre Dinkins led the Dukes with 12 points. Jahsean Corbett contributed 10 points.
The teams were tied at 29-29 at the half.
The two sides traded buckets as neither side gained more than a four-point advantage until just 21.7 seconds remaining in the contest when UMaine’s Jaden Clayton hit a pair of free throws to give the Black Bears a 59-54 lead.
Corbett scored a layup to pull Duquesne within 59-56 with six seconds left in the game.
But Tynes hit two free throws with four seconds remaining to ice the victory for UMaine.
The Black Bears jumped out to an early 10-3 lead after the first five minutes of action.
UMaine pushed the lead to double-digits on a three-pointer from Christopher Mantis at the 12:49 mark in the opening half to make it 15-5.
Duquesne tied the contest up at 29-29 with a minute to go until halftime, which was where the score stood at the break.
Lopez led the Black Bears in scoring with 8 points in the opening half of action. Mantis had 6 points and 2 steals off the bench as he knocked down a pair of three-pointers.
Tynes had 4 points, 3 steals and a block in the first half.
UMaine continues its road trip at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 14 with a game at Canisius.
