MORAGA, Calif. — The Saint Mary's Gaels (2-0) had another strong opponent come to town, as the Chattanooga Mocs (0-2) brought their brand of run and gun basketball to Moraga, and fought hard against Coach
Randy Bennett's physical defensive squad. Both teams put up their best offensive showings on the young campaign, but when the dust all settled, it was the Gaels who were able to defend their home court, downing the Mocs 86-74.
Chattanooga kept things extremely tight throughout a majority of the first half. Half way through the first frame, the Mocs led by one, and with 4:30 remaining, the Gaels led by four, their largest of the game at that point. Back to back triples from Augustas Marciulionis and Mikey Lewis quickly put the Gaels up by double-digits to completely stifle Chattanooga momentum, followed by four straight Harry Wessels free throws to push the lead out to 14 with 150 ticks remaining in the opening stanza. Chattanooga would re-find some of its groove to the tune of a 6-0 run of their own, but a pair of Paulius Murauskas free throws on the Gaels final offensive possession of the half would push the lead back out to 10, 39-29. Murauskas played all but the final possession of the half, going for an astonishing 11 points and 9 rebounds, setting himself up for his eventual second consecutive double-double. Augustas Marciulionis was the only player to play the entire first half without leaving the court, and went for eight points and three assists with no turnovers. The Gaels got to the charity stripe 18 times in the first half, converting on 15 of their 18 attempts, and only turned the ball over three times, while not allowing the Mocs to score off any of those turnovers, leading to their double digit halftime lead.
Like the start of the first half, the second frame started all Mocs. After buckets were traded on the first possessions for either side, went on an impressive 12-0 run to flip a 10 point halftime deficit to a two point lead less than three minutes into the frame. Back and forth these two heavyweights battled, with the score being knotted up at 52 apiece at the 11 minute mark. Augustas Marciulionis got the Gaels back in front with a mid-range jump shot at the 10:43 mark, followed by a steal and layup threw contact by Mikey Lewis, who connected on one of three free throws as well following a technical foul assessed to Chattanooga. The Gaels held the Mocs without a field goal for the next four minutes and change, extending their lead back to double-digits, due in big part to eight points from Lewis. Chattanooga would not get closer than an eight point deficit over the final seven minutes, as the Gaels earned their first double-digit victory of the season, 86-74. Augustas Marciulionis put together one of the best halves of basketball in his already illustrious career, scoring 19 points on 7-9 shooting, and dishing out four assists. While Paulius Murauskas wasn't quite the rebounding machine he was in the first half, he had an uptick in offensive production in the second half, with 12 second half points on 5-6 shooting, including his first two three pointers as a Gael. Saint Mary's shot a stellar 68% from the field in the second half, including a 44% clip from beyond the arc.
Augustas Marciulionis finished as the Gaels lead scorer, dropping 27, one shy of his career best, to go along with a team-high seven assists and just two turnovers. Paulius Murauskas also surpassed the 20 point threshold, with 23 (a new career-high) and 11 rebounds, for his second consecutive double-double. Mikey Lewis bested his career-high, with 14 points off the bench in 19 minutes of play, while Luke Barrett chipped in 11 on 4-6 shooting. The Gaels shot over 50% from the field for the first time since their WCC Semifinal matchup with Santa Clara last year, as they showed improvement in their field goal shooting, three point shooting, passing and ball possession in the victory tonight.
LITHUANIA'S FINEST
Augustas Marciulionis and
Paulius Murauskas combined for 50 points in the Gaels victory this evening. Marciulionis led all scorers with 27 points, one off of his career high set against Pepperdine last year, while also proving to be facilitator as well of a scorer with seven assists. Many of his assists went to his teammate,
Paulius Murauskas, who dropped a new collegiate career-high of 23 points, while ripping down 11 board for his second collegiate double-double. The duo shot a combined 16-27 (59.3%) from the field, 5-11 (45.5%) from three and 13-15 (86.7%) from the charity stripe. The last time the Gaels had two player each score 20 or more in a game came last season at San Francisco, when
Aidan Mahaney (22) and
Joshua Jefferson (21) combined for 43 points. The duo of Marciulionis and Murauskas have now combined for 46%, bringing back shades of another great non-American countrymen duo of recent past, Emmett Naar and Jock Landale (Australia).
GROWING UP BEFORE OUR EYES
True freshman guard
Mikey Lewis brought a lot of excitement to Moraga when signing on National Signing Day last year. Many wondered, however, what kind of impact the youngster would have on a team that returned eigth players from a year ago. Lewis has quickly answered that question by proving to be the perfect injection of high energy offense and defense off the bench as the Gaels sixth man just two games into his collegiate career. After scoring 10 points off the bench in 12 minutes of play in his debut vs Towson on Monday night, Lewis bested that outing by scoring 14 points in 18 minutes of play vs Chattanooga. Lewis also had arguably the biggest momentum swinging play in the game tonight, when he picked up his first collegiate steal, then took the ball coast to coast, finishing a layup through contact, then draining a free throw to push the Gaels ahead 57-52 with 10 minutes and change to go. From that point, the Gaels outscored the Mocs 29-22, closing out the victory.
BIG MINUTES FROM HARRY
Senior center
Mitchell Saxen found himself in foul trouble for the second consecutive game, picking up three fouls in the first eight minutes of action. In turn, the Gaels turned to their number two big man of the bench, big 7-1
Harry Wessels. Wessels answered the bell with a career-high 23 minutes, putting up seven points, six board and a career-high three assists to just one turnover. The Boddington, West Australia native did a majority of his damage from the stripe, where he connected on 5-6 free throw attempts. Dating back to last season, Wessels is 18 of his last 20 from the stripe over his last 20 contests.
QUOTABLE
Junior guard
Paulius Murauskas sat down with media members following his second consecutive double-double:
UP NEXT
The Gaels will take the weekend off before hosting defending MAC Champion Akron on Tuesday, November 12 at 7 PM.
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