Noel, Thomas carry UMass Lowell into 1st AEC semifinal

DURHAM, N.H. (AP) —

Obadiah Noel scored 28 points, Connor Withers added 11 points with seven rebounds for UMass Lowell (10-11). Salif Boudie added three blocks.

The River Hawks will face No. 1-seeded UMBC on Saturday.

Nick Guadarrama had 16 points for the Wildcats (10-9). Nick Johnson added 14 points and seven rebounds. Jayden Martinez had 14 points and eight rebounds.

The opening round of the AEC tournament was a weekend of upsets for the River Hawks, who bounced Stony Brook in the first round after losing twice to the Seawolves during the regular season.

Trailing by as many as 21, New Hampshire made it a three-point game twice, the final time after Guadarrama made two free throws, cutting the score to 67-64 with 43.8 seconds remaining.

He missed two 3-pointers in the last nine seconds as the River Hawks held on.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights, http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap, using data from STATS LLC, https://www.stats.com