Lewis Defeats Rivermen 54-42

Samuels Scores Career High in Loss

St. Louis, Mo. – The UMSL men’s basketball team dropped their 16th-straight game Thursday night, falling to Lewis University 54-42 in a GLVC matchup.

UMSL got the first basket of the game on a jumper by Ronnie Banks, but Lewis came back strong and scored the next ten straight points to take control in the opening minutes. Demitrius Hunter helped spark the early run with five of those ten points for the Flyers. Lewis then pushed that lead out to 13 points at 21-8 after a three-point play by Monta McGhee. Qwanzi Samuels responded for USML by hitting a three pointer and a jumper to cut the deficit to ten points at 23-13 with four minutes left in the half. The Flyers then rallied in the closing minutes to take the 28-15 lead.

In the second half, Lewis came out and quickly increased their advantage to 17 points at 38-21 in the opening five minutes of the half. From there, the Rivermen made a charge to cut into the lead, using an 8-1 run over the next four minutes to cut the Lewis lead to ten points at 39-29, but that was as close as UMSL could get the rest of the game. The Flyers used ball control and good free throw shooting to close out the game for the 54-42 win.

UMSL was led by Qwanzi Samuels who had a career high 16 points off the bench. Demitrius Hunter was the lone Lewis player to hit double figures with a team-high 15 points and Monta McGhee added 11 rebounds. The Rivermen are now 5-19 on the season and fall to 2-16 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference. UMSL will host local rival SIU Edwardsville on Saturday night for a 7:45 pm tipoff.