Chris De La Rosa recorded 11 points, five assists, four rebounds, and shot 50.0% in the game.
With 1.9 seconds remaining in the game, sophomore point guard Chris De La Rosa pulled up for a left handed jumper to give UMBC a 59-57 victory over American, snapping a nine-game losing streak and giving them their first win of the season.
Just five minutes into the game UMBC was down 14-2 to the Eagles but rallied back and never game up on the game. Eventually, just three minutes into the second half, the Retriever grabbed a hold of the lead and never let American get it back.
De La Rosa, who had a very questionable start to the season and took too many bad shots, has settled down lately and against American scored 11 points, shot 50% from the field, handed out five assists, and grabbed four rebounds in the game. While UMBC has showed a lot of improvement over the course of the season, in the last three games the Retriever have been stopped by injuries. This time both Robbie Jackson and Chauncey Gilliam were fully healthy and the team finally put everything together and got their first win.
While the team was still much smaller than American overall, Jackson, as he usually is, was the biggest player on the court and really improved the struggling defense. American only scored 22 points in the paint and shot just 35.2% from the field as they were unable to get much going inside and attempted 21 shots from outside and they only hit five of them.
Gilliam struggled against Rider with an ankle injury, but looks to be fully healthy as he left all scorers with 17 points while going up to get four rebounds and get two steals. Matt Spadafora also had another solid game as he scored 10 points and grabbed four rebounds in the game. He also had two steals and one assists while shooting 65.5% from the field.
Defensively UMBC had their best game of the season and while the bench only provided five points, all of which came from Nick Groce, they did not need to score because of the ball pressure the entire team put on American.
At 0-9 it would be easy for the team to just give up on the season, but UMBC has played very well recently and have showed they can be a factor in the America East Conference, which is wide-open as the rest of the conference has struggled in non-conference play as well, and this time the hard work paid off for their first win.
UMBC will have an extremely tough challenge to get another win in their next game as they will take on the 9-1 Virginia Tech Hokies in just two days on Tuesday, December 22, at 7:00 pm in Blacksburg, Virginia.
