LEWISTON, NY – Behind 19 points from Melik Martin (York, PA/York Catholic) and 18 from Deion Hammond (Mitchellville, MD/Riverdale Baptist School), Monmouth University Men's Basketball (8-4, 8-3 MAAC) won its fifth in a row at Niagara University (6-9, 5-8 MAAC) Friday, 77-67. It marks Monmouth's longest winning streak since 2017, and the Hawks' first road win of the year on just their second trip.

The Hawks answered every Niagara run in the second half, including scoring eight in a row on two triples and a dunk after the Purple Eagles trimmed it to an eight-point margin. The home team got the lead inside single digits briefly in the closing minutes, but the Blue and White got two straight stops and made four of six foul shots to secure the road win.

Martin answered Niagara's 4-0 start with five straight of his own and the Hawks did not look back, never trailing again. The MU opening half lead was built to 10 after Donovann Toatley (Largo, MD/Riverdale Baptist School/Chattanooga) knocked in a pair of triples, and Hammond hammered a dunk to cap a quick 5-0 run that made it a 17-point margin at 31-14. The Blue and White's largest lead of the period was 18 after Myles Ruth (Hillside, NJ/Don Bosco Prep) cleaned up a miss late in the shot clock, and MU took a 41-26 edge to the locker room after Kobi Nwandu made a buzzer-beating triple.

NOTES AND QUOTES

"Today, I thought we had a really good game plan, we did some things a little bit differently than we normally do against them and I think it messed them up a little bit and then my guys were super excited to be able to play a game after not playing last week." – King Rice
 
"We're just grateful we got to come out and play today. We didn't really think about who we had to play, we were just glad to play and get a win." – Deion Hammond

-Monmouth won its fifth in a row, the longest MU winning streak since the program record 17-game run in 2017.
-The Blue and White won its first road game of the season in just the third try.
-Deion Hammond made three triples to get to 257 makes in his career, tying the program's all-time leading scorer Justin Robinson for second all-time. Hammond is three makes shy of tying Dave Calloway's program mark of 260, and four threes short of owning the record outright.-
-Nikkei Rutty netted a career-best 12 points, dunking three times.
-Monmouth's 23 assists is the most since 11/9/12 against Hofstra (25).
-MU was +14 in assist-turnover (23-9), the most of the King Rice era and most since going +15 against FIU on 11/13/09 in the first ever game at The MAC (now OceanFirst Bank Center).
-Monmouth is now 12-5 all time against Niagara, and 12-4 as MAAC foes.
-Melik Martin tied a career-best with five assists, and scored in double figures for the 15^th time in his career, fifth time this season, and fourth time in the last five contests.
-Martin also tied career marks with eight made field goals and three triples.
-Myles Ruth had multiple steals for the eighth time in 12 games to open his first season.
-Hammond's 18 points is his 83^rd career game in double figures.
 
NUMBERS CRUNCH
-Monmouth outshot Niagara 50% to 41.8%.
-The Hawks were better from three, 47.4% to 27.3%.
-MU held MAAC First Teamer Marcus Hammond to just six points.
-The Hawks outrebounded the Purple Eagles, 32-30.
-Niagara was led by Kobi Nwandu's 20 points, while Nicholas Kratholm grabbed 10 rebounds, a game high.
 
UP NEXT
-The teams meet again tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. The game will air on ESPN3 and via the radio on the Monmouth Digital Network on MonmouthHawks.com