Alex Maze's career highs lift Keelhaulers to an 83-74 OT victory

PRESCOTT, Ariz. – Alex Maze scored six of his career-high 21 points in overtime of Thursday's Cal Pac Conference clash inside the ERAU Activity Center in Prescott, Arizona, and the Keelhaulers outscored the host Eagles 15-6 in that extra period by shooting 75 percent from the floor, hitting all three shots from three and connecting on 6 of 8 attempts from the free throw line to start 2024 with a thrilling 83-74 win in the opening half of a brutal road trip that takes the team from Vallejo to north Arizona, to Riverside, California, for Saturday's 8 p.m. at La Sierra back to campus in time for the start of the new semester on Monday. 

Of Maze's seven field goals, six were canned from three out of his 10 attempts; in addition to his three-point field goals made total, the junior guard set another career high by collecting seven rebounds.

For the second game in a row, DJ Henry scored a career-high 13 points and Lucky Hampton matched his teammate's total by scoring nine of his points before halftime.

Leading by one entering the final minute of regulation, DeAndre Minor came up clutch with a layup, scored with 18 seconds remaining, that extended the Keelhaulers' lead to three.

Even though Jake Klinger forced overtime by sinking a three, Cal Maritime remained poised and regained its lead on a three from Illyaas Rafiq with just over four minutes left in the extra session.

Back-to-back layups from Embry-Riddle helped it regain the lead at 73-71 until CSUM simply took over the rest of the game and dominated both ends of the court, starting with three-pointers from Maze, on consecutive possessions, which gave the Keelhaulers the lead for good.

Leading 77-73, a pair of free throws from Henry pushed his team's lead to six before ERAU responded with a free throw of its own to end Cal Maritime's 8-0 scoring run.

That point from the Eagles was their last of the night because the Keelhaulers scored the game's final four points at the stripe to cap an impressive five minutes of action.

Thursday's result, the team's first head-to-head road win since the 2015-16 season, improved Cal Maritime's record to 1-11 overall and 1-4 in conference play.; Embry-Riddle will continue its homestand with records of 1-11 and 0-5.

Not only did all 10 Keelhaulers who saw action Thursday night score and record at least a pair of rebounds, they outrebounded the Eagles by 10 (38-28), forced 16 turnovers and turned those miscues into 15 points.

Cal Maritime also ended the night with 10 more second chance points (12-2), 12 more points in the paint (34-22) compared to ERAU and saw its bench nearly score twice as many points compared to the Eagles' reserves (32-17).