On Saturday, Nov. 5,  NECC Knights defeated Central Maine Mustangs 78 to 63 in Concord, N.H., for the tap off classic.

Before the game Coach Darren Stratton told me he talked to his players to clean up all the dirty plays that they did on opening night in the first game of the season.

“That’s the first thing we said to clean up the stuff, clean up the game clean up the turnovers. It’s tough  when you can’t practice you can talk all you want but when you can’t practice it, it’s going to be extremely difficult but that’s the first thing we enforced, we enforced finding a men boxing out and cleaning up the turnover we gave them 22 turnovers, that’s 22 extra position we gave them so we can’t have that we going to lose more than what we going to win,” he said.

The Mustangs won the tap-off against the Knights. The game started at 12:04 p.m.

Central Maine scored first to get things started against the Knights.

Luis Reynoso of Lawrence scored a three pointer to put the Knights up 3 to 2 in the game.

The Knights increased that lead as Jeremiah Melendez of Lawrence made it 6 to 4.

Mustangs tied the game up at 6.

Reynoso put the Knights ahead 8 to 6.

The Knights were up 12 to 8 when Edwin SamMbaka of Paris, France went to the free throw line and made two shots in.

Cristian Kinsley of Lawrence shot a three and made it in Kinsley was five for four on three point line in the first half Kinsley finished with 12 points in the game.

Kinsley and Reynoso combined for 28 points.

“Yeah I think Luis and Cristian as well as some other guys had some excellent game today. Luis and Cristian played all the way through high school. So I think they know each other tendency and they work off each other and was showing today, I mean Luis this weekend I think was man against boys and I think everyone else in the team rally against them and he is firm believer as well as anyone else that there is no special person in this basketball team that everyone has held accountable,” Coach Stratton said.

Philip Cunningham of Haverhill stole  the ball and passed it to Reynoso as Reynoso banged a two pointer to increase the Knights lead.

It was clear the first half that the Knights got the Mustangs number. The Mustangs started to play sloppy basketball all around as the Knights got into their head.

A steal by Reynoso made it in to make it 40-18 in favor of the Knights.

The Knights were taking advantage of Mustangs foul as the Knights was making free throws. The Knights had 11 fouls while Mustangs had 10.

The second half started with Reynoso shooting a two the very next play he stole the ball and passed it to Mehemet Asik “R2” of Ankara Turkey to Melendez to Tre Fite of Massillon, Ohio who scored a three point shot.

The Knights largest lead in the first half was 24 and in the second half was 26.

“The lead slipped away some of the guys we start defending we start doing the simple things we can’t take anything for granted we have to get better every day every possession and I think we felt we took some of the possession, I think Central Maine close out the first half with an 8-0 run and then early in this half they made a 10-0 run because we got lazy, we weren’t very effective,” Coach Stratton said.

The Knights opened the second half with a 10-2 run over the Mustangs.

Metin Yavuz and Asik got technical fouls in the second half.

I ask Stratton why they were able to stay in the game if they got technical fouls.

“When you get two technical you are not allowed to get back in the court each of them receive one technical R2 was from hanging in the basket and Metin was for vulgar language that we got to clean up,” Stratton said.

The Mustangs were on a run against the Knights as they were trying to keep it closer as the run ended on Reynoso three pointer.

Stratton called a timeout, the Knights was in business Ashton Ventola of Danville, N.H. came off the bench by scoring a two pointer.

Coach Stratton used another timeout as he was pretty upset and angry that the team wasn’t playing well the way that Stratton wanted the team to perform during the middle of the second half.

“I was very upset because I had some basketball players on this team that weren’t all about the team, that they were about them self and individual and they have to understand that there is not enough minutes on this basketball game to get everyone involved and they either want to be part of the team or they going to be part of individual and from day one they know I will sign a transfer for any single player on my basketball team to transfer else where…” he said.

The Knights in the last five minutes of the game they started fouling and missing shots. They could have scored more than 78 points during the game which they won 78-63.