NEWARK, NJ—UMass Lowell graduate student guard Marco Banegas-Flores scored 14 of his team-leading 15 points in the second half and the visiting River Hawks held on against NJIT for a 63-61 men's basketball victory Saturday afternoon in the Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
UMass Lowell, which is opening its season with five road games, evened its record at 2-2 with the victory over NJIT (1-3). The River Hawks lost their first two contests, at Ohio State and at Rhode Island, before winning at Sacred Heart in another close low-scoring game Thursday night, 57-54. They will visit Fordham in the Bronx Sunday evening before returning home to Lowell.
 
Aside from Banegas-Flores, who played three seasons at Northeastern before graduating and entering grad school at UMass Lowell, the River Hawks got double-figure scoring from two players off the bench. Freshman guard Lance Crawford scored 14 points and sophomore forward Tyler Livingston added 10 points.
 
Redshirt freshman Jahad Thomas, who came in as UMass Lowell's leading scorer, averaging 17.3 points per game, was held to 6 points, but he contributed to the road victory with a game-high 13 rebounds.
 
Senior guard Chad Holley contributed a lone point to the UMass Lowell scoring column, but he finished with 6 assists and just a pair of turnovers in 30 minutes, despite working against full-court pressure from the NJIT defense most of the game.
 
NJIT also had three double-figure scorers, led by sophomore guard Damon Lynn's game-high 20 points. Junior guard Ky Howard had a double-double with 12 points and a team-leading and career-high 12 rebounds and sophomore newcomer Osa Izevbuwa came off the bench for 10 points, his highest total as a Highlander.
 
The game was close throughout, with NJIT holding a slender 25-23 halftime lead.
 
The Highlanders remained on top until UMass Lowell's Livingston drained a 3-pointer with 14:24 on the clock to give the River Hawks a 36-35 advantage. There would be three ties in the ensuing 2:16 before the visitors put together a spurt fueled by points off of NJIT turnovers.
 
A Chad Holley steal and assist set up a 3-pointer by Crawford. On the next possession, Livingston made a steal and got the ball to Holley, who fed Crawford for a layup. The next NJIT possession resulted in another Livingston steal and Crawford was fouled in the act of shooting on the offensive end. He made the second of two free throws, giving the visitors a 47-41 lead at the 10:24 mark, 40 seconds after the game had been tied.
 
NJIT's Howard broke the run with a pair of free throws and Lynn pulled the Highlanders to within one, 47-46, on a conventional 3-point play with 7:41 left.
 
Izevbuwa tied the score for the Highlanders a short time later, but the River Hawks continued to exploit NJIT miscues. The points-off-turnovers for the game favored the visitors 25-11 and most of that 14-point advantage, came in the second half when it was 17-7 for UMass Lowell.
 
The River Hawks also had a big edge in second-chance points, topping the Highlanders in that category 16-6 over the course of the game and 11-3 in the second half.
 
Both categories came into play after Ivezbuwa had knotted the score at 47-47 for NJIT. Kerry Weldon broke the tie for UMass Lowell on a layup after a steal and assist by Cornelius and Livingston scored a second-chance bucket when he put back a miss by Cornelius on a possession that also started with a turnover by the home team.
 
NJIT got back within 3 points of the lead on a free throw by Odera Nweke, but Banegas-Flores, who is the younger brother of Chris Flores (NJIT Class of 2013), the Highlanders' all-time program Division I career scoring leader, put his team in the driver's seat, connecting on a jump shot and then on a 3-pointer that gave UMass Lowell its biggest lead of the day, 56-48, with 3:57 left on the clock.
 
The Highlanders trailed the rest of the way, but they made a closing run and the game was still in doubt until the last 4 seconds.
 
Down eight, Winfield Willis hit a 3-pointer from the corner to pull NJIT within five.
 
The deficit was 6 points when NJIT's Lynn fed Daquan Holiday for a layup and then Lynn hit the fourth of his five 3-pointers to bring the Highlanders back within a point, 57-56, with 2:32 left. Banegas-Flores answered with another successful jump shot, pushing the River Hawks' lead back to three points.
 
Nweke, the NJIT senior, was fouled coming down with a defensive rebound and with UMass Lowell in the double foul shooting penalty, Nweke made two free throws to cut the deficit to a lone point yet again, this time with 38 seconds left.
 
With the Highlanders willing to foul in order to stop the clock, Holley got the inbounds pass, was fouled and he made the first of two foul shots for a 2-point UMass Lowell lead.
 
The Highlanders got the rebound when Holley missed on his second try, but the Highlanders committed their 22nd turnover, forcing them to foul the freshman Crawford, who made both shots for a 62-58 lead with 20 seconds remaining.
 
Rushing up court, Lynn launched a three with a man in his face and the ball swished through, closing the Highlanders back to within a point, 62-61, with 12 seconds still to play.
 
The home team fouled Banegas-Flores immediately on the inbounds and he made the first of two free throws, but missed the second with about 10 seconds showing and Nweke, the rebounder, sent the ball ahead.
 
Trailing by two points, Tim Coleman, who had made a 3-pointer in each of the preceding three games for NJIT, put one up from downtown, but it missed with 3.3 seconds left and Banegas-Flores, who got the rebound for the River Hawks, held on until the final buzzer sounded.
 
The Highlanders, who have played two games at home and two on the road so far, will be away for the next four games beginning with a nationally-televised game Monday night in Milwaukee against Marquette. The game on FOX Sports 1 is set to begin at 8 pm (Central).