Dempsey leads Panthers to season sweep of Huskies

              GORHAM, Maine – Senior Ian Dempsey (Andover, Mass.) scored 17 points and grabbed seven rebounds Tuesday evening to lead the Plymouth State University Panthers to a 75-64 win over the University of Southern Maine Huskies in a Little East Conference men's basketball game at Hill Gymnasium.

              Plymouth State snaps a two-game losing streak and improves to 10-11 overall and 4-7 in the Little East.  Suffering its eighth loss in as many games, Southern Maine falls to 9-13 and 1-10 in the conference.

              Dempsey was 6-of-12 from the field and 4-of-8 from three-point range to lead three Panthers in double figures.  Senior Tom Dowd (Portsmouth, N.H.) added 16 points and four rebounds and junior Jesse Sabolis (Stoughton, Mass.) chipped in with 13 points on 4-of-5 shooting off of the bench. 

              USM senior Devin Chambers led all scorers with a career-high 23 points on a 10-of-19 effort from the field. Chambers added four steals.  Senior Otis Smith tossed in 17 points, six rebounds and three steals. 

              Trailing by a point 53-52 with 8:50 left in the game, the Panthers grabbed a 13-point, 70-57, lead with 3:33 on the clock with an 18-4 run to snatch the game from the Huskies.  Four different players scored in the pivotal run for the Panthers, led by five points from Sabolis and six points from junior Brian Chergey (Bow, N.H.). 

              Southern Maine pulled to within eight of PSU on a three from sophomore Alex Kee and a jumper in the paint from Chambers, but Plymouth State held for the win thanks in part to timely baskets from Sabolis and Dowd in the final two minutes. 

              Both teams are back in action on Saturday (3:00 p.m.); Southern Maine travels to Rhode Island College and Plymouth State visits UMass Boston. 

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