Coast Guard Academy Sports Roundup

The Coast Guard Academy lost two basketball games to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Springfield College on Wednesday, but earned first and second place finishes in a swimming and diving tri-meet against Babson College and Wellesley College. The following information was provided by Jason Southard, sports information director at the Coast Guard Academy:

Men's Basketball: MIT 83, Coast Guard 55

Senior Noel Hollingsworth had a game-high 24 points while junior Will Tashman added 21 points and a game-high 14 rebounds as MIT, ranked third nationally, improved to 15-0 with an 83-55 win over Coast Guard in a New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) game.

MIT, which also improved to 3-0 in conference play, jumped out to a 14-3 lead in the first five minutes of play and led 43-24 at halftime.

Coast Guard (6-6, 0-3), which dropped its third straight, scored the first five points of the second half cutting the deficit to 43-29 and the Bears trailed 59-44 with 11:37 left before the Engineers used a 12-2 spurt to put the Bears away taking a 71-46 lead with 6:42 remaining.

Senior Jamie Karraker was also in double figures with 11 points for MIT.

Sophomore Devonte Weems led Coast Guard with 11 points while junior Jimmy Knudsen finished with ten points in the loss. Freshman David Anderson led the Bears with seven rebounds.

MIT shot 45.3 percent from the floor (29-64) while hitting six of 20 from 3-point range (30 percent) while Coast Guard was held to a season-low 31.3 shooting from the field (21-67) while making five of 17 from behind the arc.

Women's Basketball: Springfield 69, Coast Guard 46

The Springfield College women's basketball team used a 30-6 run to blow open a seven-point halftime lead as it ran past visiting Coast Guard, 69-46, in New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) game.

With the win, Springfield raises its record to 8-6 overall, 4-3 in the NEWMAC, while Coast Guard falls to 5-6 overall, and 1-6 in the conference. The Pride has now won six of its last eight.

For SC, a total of 12 players played and a total of 12 players scored. The Pride was led by junior guard Meghan Biondolillo with 24 points. She was 8-for-11 from the floor, including 6-of-8 from 3-point range. Senior guard and co-captain Andrea Butler gave the home team quite a lift by scoring 13 points, including 6-of-9 from the floor. Up next was senior forward and co-captain Kelly Slattery with eight points.

For the Bears of Coast Guard, three players scored eight points apiece. They were freshman guard Brittney Zimmerman, freshman guard Alexi Howland and sophomore guard Kaitlin Ward.

Coast Guard outrebounded the Pride, 44-43. That included 16 offensive rebounds. The Bears accumulated 17 turnovers to SC's 13.

The main difference came in the field goal percentages. Springfield shot .435 from the floor (27-of-62), while Coast Guard shot .286 (18-of-63).

The Pride opened up a seven-point lead after Biondolillo connected on a pair from the charity stripe to make it 13-6 with 12:17 to play.

The Bears answered back with a 9-0 run, capped off by a mid-range jumper from Larla Brown as they snagged their first lead of the game at 15-13. Over the next three minutes, the Pride used a 9-3 burst, including four points from Slattery, to open up a 24-18 lead with 5:21 on the clock. Much in part to 10 first-half points from Biondolillo, Springfield went into the locker room up 28-21.

Even more of a difference came at the start of the second half. It was 28-21 in favor of the Pride at the intermission. But in the first 11:10 of the second half, SC outscored Coast Guard, 30-6, making the score 58-27. With the score 61-31, Coast Guard scored 10 straight points to cut the margin to 61-41 with 4:39 left.

The real stars for SC were Biondolillo, who kept firing, and making, her 3-point attempts (she was 4-of-5 from long-range in the second half), and Butler, who was credited with a game-high five steals. She also had four assists.

Swimming and Diving

Coast Guard won 15 of the 16 events to cruise past Babson 224-66 at Wellesley College.

Bryan Andrews won both the 100 backstroke (55.59) and the 200 backstroke (2:05.73), Tim Early won both the 200 butterfly (1:59.35) and the 200 breaststroke (2:21.05) and Johnson Knox won both the 50 freestyle (21.94) and the 200 IM (2:01.86) for the Bears.

Marco Tinari won the 1000 freestyle (10:05.83), Alex Dona won the 200 freestyle (1:47.90), Derrian Duryea won the 100 breaststroke (1:03.11), Christian Brindamour won the 100 freestyle (48.03), Kevin Smit won the 500 freestyle (4:54.45), Ryan Buys won the 100 butterfly (55.36) and Orlando Morel won the one-meter diving with a score of 241.10 for Coast Guard which improved to 6-1 in dual meets this season.

The Bears 200 medley relay team of Barrett Johannsen, Brett Gayman, Dan Beshoar and Brian McGuiness won with a time of 1:41.21 while the 400 freestyle relay team of Beshoar, McGuiness, Duryea and Brindamour won with a time of 3:18.74.

In the women's competition, Chantel Ferguson won the 200 breaststroke and placed second in the 100 butterfly as Coast Guard split a tri-meet beating Babson 156.5-136.5, but lost to host Wellesley 203-97.

Ferguson captured the 200 breaststroke (2:36.67) and was second in the 100 butterfly (1:01.98) as the Bears are now 3-5 in dual meets this season.

Also for the Bears, Caitlyn Gever won the 50 freestyle with a time of 25.55 and Darlene Sao won the 200 IM (2:20.03).

Sarah Jane Otey was second in the 1000 freestyle (11:14.30), Jordan Mestemaker was second in the 200 breaststroke (2:38.46) and Sara Cantrell placed second on the three-meter board with a score of 218.40.