HANOVER, NH—Dartmouth combined a strong defensive showing with enough scoring, especially at the foul line, to top visiting NJIT, 62-53, in men's basketball at Dartmouth's Leede Arena Saturday afternoon.
 
The Highlanders, who had won their preceding five games, tasted defeat for the first time in the 2015 calendar year, sustaining their first loss since December 28. The five-game winning streak that ended Saturday had been NJIT's longest since another five-game run in February and March 2013..
 
With Saturday's loss at Dartmouth. NJIT fell back to the break-even mark for the season at 10-10. The Big Green, who will play their remaining games in Ivy League, are 7-8 overall, including 4-2 at home.
 
Dartmouth, which shot 20-for-25 at the foul line in the game and 19-for-23 (83 percent) in the second half, got a team-leading 15 points from junior guard Alex Mitola, who hails from Hanover Park, NJ. A 79 percent foul shooter coming in, Mitola was 6-for-6 at the line, all in the second half, against the Highlanders. He also produced three of Dartmouth's four 3-pointers for the game.
 
Senior big man Gabas Maldunas added 12 points, a game-high 6 rebounds and 5 blocked shots to the winning effort, while junior Connor Boehm chipped in 11 points for Dartmouth.
 
NJIT lost despite a game-high 18 points for junior guard Winfield Willis, who shot 7-for-8 from the floor, including 4-for-5 from 3-point distance. Willis also shared the team rebounding lead, pulling down five, a rebound total also reached by sophomores Tim Coleman and Rob Ukawuba.
 
Ukawuba also scored 12 points, to match his career high set three days earlier in a home win over St. Joseph's Brooklyn. The sophomore also made 3 steals at Dartmouth, one less than NJIT's team steals leader, Damon Lynn.
 
Coleman scored 11 points for NJIT, all in the second half, extending his run of games with at least 11 points to eight in a row, dating back to his 12-point game at #7 Villanova on December 23.
 
NJIT, which had largely cleaned up its early-season difficulties with turnovers during the five-game winning streak, reverted against Dartmouth, committing a season-worst 23 miscues, one more than in two early-season losses back in November.
 
The turnovers were particularly destructive to the Highlanders in first half, when they managed just one more point (16) than turnovers (15) in the opening 20 minutes of play.
 
With so many offensive possessions that ended before a shot could be taken, NJIT got off only 17 shot attempts from the floor in the opening 20 minutes, while simultaneously not getting even one free throw attempt. In fact, the low-scoring half, which ended with the Big Green ahead, 23-16, had only two foul shots between the teams (for the record, Dartmouth's Boehm went 1-for-2 on the only free throws of the first half).
 
That NJIT was anywhere near the lead could be attributed to the fact that four of the six Highlander field goals were 3-pointers. And on defense, NJIT held Dartmouth to 40 percent shooting and the Highlanders made 9 steals on defense, contributing to 12 Big Green turnovers.
 
Willis had exactly half of NJIT's 16 points in the first half and Boehm's 7 were high for the home team at the intermission.
 
NJIT cut down on its turnovers considerably in the second half, going from 15 in the opening 20 minutes to eight in the second 20 minutes.
 
The shooting from the field improved a bit, too, and NJIT took 12 free throws in the second half, making 11, resulting in 37 second-half points compared to 16 in the opening half.
 
However, Dartmouth, helped by its outstanding 19-for-23 on second-half foul shots, outscored NJIT, 39-37, after the break, slightly extending the 7-point first half lead to a final gap of 9.points.
 
Dartmouth's foul-shooting accuracy proved to be especially important from the middle of the second half on.
 
Mitola hit a 3-pointer with 11:18 left for a 38-27 advantage and the Big Green did not make another field goal until Maldunas scored with 2:36 remaining, a span of 8:42.
 
When Maldunas scored at 2:36 it put his team ahead by 10, one below the lead after Mitola's three, in large part because Dartmouth had sunk 11 free throws in the interim between baskets. The winners added seven more points at the foul line in the closing two minutes to keep the Highlanders at bay.
 
By holding the Highlanders to their third-lowest scoring total of the season, Dartmouth has now held six of its last seven opponents to 59 points or less.
 
The Highlanders will continue their two-game swing in northern New England, heading east and north to Bangor, Maine, for a 1 pm contest on Monday afternoon, Martin Luther King Jr. Day vs. the University of Maine.