By Joe Pantorno, Assistant Sports Editor
Coming back from a rough 0-3 Puerto Rico trip, the Hofstra men's basketball team returned home to get its season back on track against Wagner College on Nov. 26.
It looked like the Pride was hung-over from its trip and Thanksgiving as Wagner jumped out early to an 11-3 lead. The Seahawks began the game and remained hot from distance as freshman guard Latif Rivers put on a show from downtown as he led all scorers with 28 points.
The Pride did not possess the ball well in the opening half as key players were frustrated by Wagner's play. Senior guard and Charles Jenkins did not make a field goal in the entire half and was held to just two points while senior center Greg Washington found himself in early foul trouble that saw him spend a majority of the game on the bench (Washington only played 15 minutes).
"That wasn't me in the first half," said Jenkins. "That was Thanksgiving Charles; he was still on the court."
With Jenkins and Washington's disappointing halves, the Pride had its youngest members step up to keep the game close. Freshman forwards David Imes and Stephen Nwaukoni began taking over the boards and the scoring leader board to try and sway any sort of momentum to the Pride.
"I know if G [Washington] is in foul trouble and Dave [Imes] is in foul trouble, I have to step up and rebound," said Nwaukoni. "And that's exactly what I did."
Though his best player was held to only two points, shooting 0-7 from the field and his team trailed 35-28 going into half time, head coach Mo Cassara was not panicking.
"I leaned over to [assistant coach] Steve DeMeo and I said Charles only has two points," said Cassara. "He laughed back and said ‘that's good news,' because that means that our other guys are contributing and they're fighting and we knew Charles at some point was going to get going."
It did not look like anything was going in the Pride's favor as Wagner came out in the second half and increased their lead to 10, the largest of the night. Finally, with seven minutes gone in the half, Jenkins hit his first field goal and immediately began to steal the show as he sparked a 16-5 Pride run, scoring nine consecutive points as Hofstra took a 46-45 lead with 9:56 left in the game.
The Pride was able to keep the lead, but Wagner hung tough. Hofstra's lead grew to six at 60-54, but would not improve as Rivers and junior guard Tyler Murray had the hot hand to keep the game close.
With the Pride up 64-61 and with 18 seconds left, Murray hit what appeared to be the game tying three-pointer from the left corner, but his toe was on the line and Hofstra was able to keep a lead at 64-63.
With Hofstra hitting its free throws to open a three point lead, it was Rivers who had a look from downtown to tie the game, but missed short. Nwaukoni was there to clean up the boards, draw a foul and sink one of two foul shots to seal the win for the Pride with the final score of 67-63.
It was a coming out party for both freshman forwards as Imes and Nwaukoni each recorded double doubles. Imes had 14 points and 17 rebounds while Nwaukoni recorded 10 points and 13 rebounds. Jenkins scored 17 points in the second half for a total of 19 on the game.
"The biggest challenge for this team now is to get better every day and continue to learn how to win and tonight I think we did a few things down the stretch to learn how to win," said Cassara. "I'm very proud of our effort. Certainly we got some efforts from different guys. For David Imes to go out there and get 17 rebounds and Stephen Nwaukoni to go out there and get 13 rebounds is really just a tribute to how hard they're working."