BANGOR – The University of Maine received double-digit efforts from both Zarko Valjarevic and Till Gloger but fell to 1-5 overall as Dartmouth (3-1) defeated the Black Bears 81-56 at the Cross Insurance Center on Sunday afternoon.
Valjarevic shot 7 of 12 from the field and 3 of 7 from 3-point range as he tallied 17 points in the losing effort. Gloger helped Maine both on the scoreboard and in the rebound department tallying 10 points and eight rebounds.
The Big Green had four players tally double-digits as Alex Mitola paced Dartmouth with 19 points. Dartmouth also had Connor Boehm (15 points), Malik Gill (14 points) and John Golden (12 points) double figures.
Maine took a 9-8 lead into the first media timeout as both Gloger and Micovic made their presence felt in the paint.
Coming out of the break Valjarevic drilled a trey to extend the lead to 11-8.
With the score 15-13, Valjarevic hit another 3-pointer coming out of the second media to extend the lead to 18-13.
Maine shooting went cold with under five minutes left as Dartmouth took its first lead of the game as Kevin Crescenzi hit a trey to give the Big Green a 24-23 lead.
Maine responded on the next possession as Troy Reid-Knight hit a 3-pointer of his own to make it 25-24 with under four minutes remaining in the half.
Dartmouth began to take control of the contest at the latter part of the first half as Boehm hit a late 3-point bucket to make it 31-25 with 2:05 remaining.
Dartmouth concluded the frame on a 14-5 run going into the break up 39-30.
Maine won the rebounding battle in the first part of the half but trailed off towards the end, maintaining a 21-17 advantage.
Beal opened the scoring in the second half bringing Maine to within seven points of the lead, 39-32.
Dartmouth responded with four points to increase the lead to double digits (45-32) to force a Black Bear timeout with 17:46 left to go in the game.
Dartmouth took complete control of the shortly there after as the Black Bears were outscored 42-26 in the final frame.
The Black Bears outrebounded 37-30 and the Big Green shot 48 percent.
UMaine takes to the road for a two-game slate first playing NJIT on Wednesday night and Connecticut on Friday night. Both games are slated for 6 p.m.
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