By Tom McDermott
Contributing Writer

Junior Miguel Gonzalez’s buzzerbeating three-pointer lifted the Southern New Hampshire University men’s basketball team to a 52-49 victory over No. 1-ranked Bentley College before a raucous crowd of 1,747 at the SNHU Fieldhouse on Saturday, Feb. 12.

Freshmen Sam Carey, a Central alumnus, and classmate Bernard led the Penmen with 11 and 10 points, respectively.

Bentley, unbeaten in conference play, entered the game riding a 21-game winning streak. The Falcons, who took over the No. 1 spot in the NABC Division II national poll last week, dropped to 24-3 overall and 18-1 in the Northeast-10 Conference. SNHU, which ran its home winning streak to 14 games, snapped a two-game losing streak and improved to 18-6 overall and 14-6 in the league. The Penmen entered the game ranked fifth in the Northeast among Division II schools.

SNHU took a 47-42 lead following a crowd-pleasing dunk by senior J.J. Harvey with 3:33 left, but the Falcons cut the lead to three points following two free throws by junior Tim Forbes with 2:11 remaining. Gonzalez tipped in his own miss with 1:06 left, but the Falcons answered with a threepointer by junior Sean Cooke 10 seconds later.

SNHU came up empty on its next possession and Forbes scored with :08 seconds left to knot the score at 49-49. Gonzalez took the inbounds pass, dribbled the length of the court and swished the gamewinning three-pointer from just in front of the SNHU bench. Neither team led by more than six points in the game, which featured six ties and nine lead changes.

Back-to-back buckets by Lacasse gave the Falcons an 18-15 lead with just more than five minutes left in the first half, but the Penmen outscored the Falcons 12-4 the rest of the half and took a 27-22 lead into the break.

Bentley opened the second half with a 15-4 run and took its largest lead of the game, 37-31, following a three-pointer by Forbes with 12:11 left to play. SNHU answered with a threepointer by Gonzalez and the Penmen later took a 43-39 lead following a triple by freshman P. Jay Bernard (Brockton, MA) with 8:05 left. The teams traded baskets before Harvey’s dunk gave the Penmen their 47- 42 lead.