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WEST HARTFORD, Conn. – Junior Mark Nwakamma led four Hawks in double figures with 18 points, including the 1,000th of his career, while senior Oren Faulk recorded a career-high in scoring on Thursday night to lead the University of Hartford men's basketball team to an 80-65 win over the visiting Maine Black Bears. Scoring its second-straight win, Hartford improves to 7-10 overall with a 1-1 record in league action while Maine drops to 3-11 overall and 1-1 in the America East.

With the score tied for the 10th time at 55-all with nine minutes to go, Hartford capped off the night by outscoring Maine, 25-10, to secure its first win in the America East. The Hawks improved upon a mediocre 33.3 percent (13-for-39) first-half effort from the floor by shooting a sizzling 70.4 percent (19-for-27) in the second to pull away and improve to 4-1 on their home court.

Completing his second-straight double-double bid and fifth on the season by grabbing 10 boards, Nwakamma, who entered the game needing just one more point to reach the millennium mark, got that bucket four minutes in, but that would be the only offense he would produce in the first half. The junior bounced back to have a strong second half, however, as he made all seven of his shot attempts to help fuel his team's late offensive surge.

Rounding out the top-scorers for Hartford were juniors Yolonzo Moore II and Nate Sikma. Moore scored 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting while Sikma added 10, coming one rebound shy of compiling his first double-double of the season. Maine, which shot under 50-percent (48.5%), was led by 26 points from Xavier Pollard.

Faulk kept the Hawks in the game in the first half, coming off the bench to score 10 points. Eight of those tallies came in the final four minutes of the stanza to prevent Maine from pulling away by more than two points. The Black Bears buried four of their first six attempts from long range in that opening stretch, but carried just a slight 31-30 edge into the locker rooms thanks to Faulk's offensive burst.  

Neither team led by more than four points in the first, a period that saw the Hawks score almost half (15) of their points off of 10 Black Bear turnovers. Maine went on to throw the ball away 16 times to Hartford's nine.

Starting off the second with a Sikma layup to take the lead at 32-30, the Hawks held on to that edge for the remainder of the contest but was unable to build more than a five-point advantage. Clinging on to a 55-53 advantage at 9:19, Hartford landed itself into another tie with Maine after Shawn Lawton converted on a pair of freebies, but that proved to be the final deadlock of the contest as the Hawks heated up.

The largest run of the game, a 9-0 Hartford spurt featuring four-straight points from Nwakamma and a Wes Cole three-pointer, put the home team in the driver's seat for good. Shooting over 72 percent (8-for-11) down that stretch, that lead expanded to as many as 17 with nine seconds on the clock as Cole cranked-in another triple off a Maine miss from downtown.

Cole finished with eight points while sophomore Evan Cooper, who finished with five, handed out a career-high seven assists for the second time this season. The Hawks registered assists on 21 of their 32 baskets with both numbers being season-highs for the team.  

The Hawks conclude a busy stretch of three games in six days on Sunday when they welcome the Stony Brook Seawolves to the Chase Family Arena. Part of an ESPN3 doubleheader with the Hartford women, who take on UAlbany at 12 noon, the men's game is set to begin at 2:30 p.m.