HAMPTON, Virginia -- Up by 12 with seven minutes left in the game, the Norfolk State men's basketball team saw both its lead and its perfect conference record begin to fade in the final minutes against Hampton Monday night in the Battle of the Bay at the HU Convocation Center.Someway, somehow, the Spartans survived a very wild finish to the game for a 62-59 victory over the Pirates to give NSU a season sweep of Hampton.
The win, NSU's Division I record 11th in a row, improved the Spartans' MEAC record to 12-0 and their overall mark to 17-10. NSU won its fourth straight over the Pirates with its second-straight season sweep.
NSU stayed a game ahead of North Carolina Central (11-1) in the MEAC standings. The Spartans came into the night holding the sixth-longest winning streak in the nation.
It was not without some drama, though, as Hampton (10-17, 7-4) used a 12-1 run in the latter stages of the game to cut the NSU lead to one on two occasions, the latter with just 56.9 seconds left when Deron Powers hit 1-of-2 from the free throw line.
NSU had gone almost six minutes without scoring until junior Pendarvis Williams also went 1-of-2 from the line 16 seconds prior to Powers. After the Hampton freshman made it 60-59, the Spartans bled out the play clock until junior Malcolm Hawkins hit a driving layup with 22.6 seconds left.
Hampton missed a 3-pointer on its end, and Powers lost the ball after grabbing the offensive board. NSU, though, turned it right back over, but Hampton did the same as Ke'Ron Brown stepped on the sideline with 9.3 seconds left trying to hoist up a trey.
Typical of how the game played out at the end, the Spartans immediately turned it over on their inbounds pass. Brown missed a layup for Hampton after grabbing the errant pass, and with 7.6 seconds left Ramon Mercado missed a 3-pointer from the right corner off one last inbounds pass.
Senior Rob Johnson missed a pair of free throws on the other end for NSU to keep it a one possession game, but Powers was unable to get a potential game-tying shot off in the final second.
Hawkins led all players with 18 points, while freshman Rashid Gaston had his best game of the year with a career-high 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting with nine rebounds. The rookie scored nine straight points at one point in the second half for NSU to keep the Spartan advantage in double digits.
Williams joined them in double figures with 11. Hampton shot just 21-of-69 (30.4 percent) for the game and was unable to take advantage of a 55-35 edge on the boards, including a 24-8 edge on the offensive glass.
The Spartans, on the other hand, hit just 24-of-58 (41.4 percent) overall.
Tied at 32 at the half, junior Jamel Fuentes scored the first four points of the second stanza to help the Spartans pick up the tempo. Hampton called timeout after NSU scored seven of the first nine points after halftime, and the Spartans eventually put together a 16-4 run over the first eight minutes of the second half. A trey from Williams and four points from junior Brandon Goode sparked NSU during that spurt.
Gaston scored his nine straight points for NSU to keep the lead in double digits as the clock ticked to less than 10 minutes to go. After a pair of free throws from Hawkins, though, Hampton countered with its final run of the contest to set up the end-of-game excitement.
Mercado and Du'Vaughn Maxwell led Hampton with 12 points each. Maxwell also had 10 boards. Powers and Brown each added 10 points.
Early in the game, Hawkins completed at 3-point play at the 13:53 mark to get NSU to within two, 9-7. Hampton went up by five at 16-11 after Emmanuel Okoroba's basket, but senior Kris Brown drove to the hoop and made a nice reverse layup at the 9:31 mark to cut the deficit to three.
NSU was forced to call timeout down 23-15, and then the Spartans used a 13-4 run over a four-and-a-half minute span to take a 28-26 lead with less than three minutes to go. Hawkins was key at the end of the run, hitting a trey with his foot just off the 3-point line – the referees went to the courtside monitor to confirm – and connecting on a driving layup to finally give NSU its first lead of the game.
Hawkins totaled 11 points in the first half, and Gaston added eight, including the last two buckets of the half for the Spartans. Aaron Austin hit 1-of-2 from the free throw line with 6.9 seconds left for HU to tie the game at 32 heading into the intermission.
Good finished with a career-high five blocks to go with four points and six boards.
NSU will play its last road game of the regular season next Saturday at Delaware State at 4 p.m.
Box Score
By Mike Bello, Assistant Sports Information Director
NORFOLK STATE UNIVERSITY
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