LEXINGTON, Va. - Senior forward Dan Dupras scored 21 points to lead Mary Washington to a 60-56 upset win over VMI Friday night at Cameron Hall.
The Eagles won their ninth consecutive game and moved to 10-1 on the year. It was also Mary Washington's first win over a Division I opponent in the 30-year history of the program.
VMI, playing its first game since the end of the exam period, struggled all night in shooting, hitting just 34% from the field including 7 of 26 attempts in the second half. VMI hit just 10 of 19 foul shots on the night.
The loss spoiled an evening where sophomore Jason Conley went over the 1,000 point mark for his career when he hit a 3-pointer 40 seconds into the contest. Conley became the 28th player in VMI history to score 1,000 points for a career and reached the milestone in just 36 games. Conley finished with a game-high 24 points and Radee Skipworth added 10 points for the Keydets.
The Eagles placed four in double figures scoring. Joining Dupras were Brett Lively and Cris Hairston with 12 points, and Jon Hurd with 10 points.
The first half saw four ties and 11 lead changes before VMI took a 34-30 lead at intermission. But the Eagles hit eight of their first 12 shots in the second half and outscored the Keydets 16-9 over the first 9:48 of the frame. Cris Hairston's jumper at the 15:56 mark broke a 38-38 tie - the 13th tie of the game - and put the Eagles up for good. VMI remained within two possessions most of the game with the exception of a seven-point deficit (55-48) when Brett Lively nailed a jumper with 4:25 left.
The Eagles hit 12 of 16 free throws, including five of seven in the final :49 to keep distance and hand VMI its first Division III loss since a 51-50 setback to Roanoke College on December 9, 1987.
Evan Fowler dished out 12 assists to lead the Eagle attack.
VMI (4-4) will next play in the Spider Invitational on Saturday, drawing Norfolk State in the first round at 5:30 p.m. at the Robins Center in Richmond. Mary Washington resumes action when it faces Washington & Lee January 13th in Fredericksburg.
HEAD COACH BART BELLAIRS - "Mary Washington played very hard and very well. They came in 9-1. I don't know why we couldn't figure out we need to cover #10 (Dupras). We talked about it all in our scouting report. But I will take full responsibility for this loss. You could just see we were drained. Our kids worked so hard in finals, we had great shots - I counted 15 or 16 wide open layups we just missed. That was a collection of mental slowness tonight and again, we just worked so hard on our finals. We just didn't have it. You hope that we'd have someone step up, but we just did not. We got inside, but we just didn't follow through and make baskets. We'll learn from that. Maybe this will wake us up. It's not the way you want to go into Christmas . We've got good kids and they work so hard. But we'll regroup."
