BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Trailing 76-65 with just over seven minutes to play, the Northampton men's basketball team closed the game on a 28-11 run to earn a hard-fought 93-87 victory over Montgomery County Community College on Tuesday evening at the Arthur L. Scott Spartan Center.

The Spartans, who led 47-42 at the intermission, fell behind in the second half as Montgomery's Ron Melton (36 points) consistently got to the rim and Nick Demeno nailed two 3-pointers to push the Mustangs into the lead.

Northampton responded, turning up the defensive pressure and forcing Montgomery into mistakes and controlling the defensive glass down the stretch.  RJ Fletcher scored 18 points, Derek Kulp 15, Jahbri Hargrove 14, Malcolm Lyles 14 and Astin Jones 11 as the Spartans put five players in double figures.

"I can't say enough about the fight in these guys," remarked an emotionally spent Mike Kaminski, "they didn't give up, they kept working hard and found a way to dig deep and get an important conference victory."

Brent Maron scored 7 points, including a 5 for 6 performance at the line down the stretch, dished out 9 assists and hauled down 7 rebounds, while Hargrove added a team-high 9 boards.

Northampton, now 5-2 overall and 3-0 in Region XIX, returns to action on Thursday when they travel to Lancaster, Pa. to face Thaddeus Stevens College.

Montgomery falls to 2-2 overall and 2-1 in Region XIX.


Watch a broadcasat of the game here: http://www.ihigh.com/nccspartans/broadcast_323779.html?silverlight=1