Vermont downs UMBC 81-74 to advance to AEC title game

BURLIGTON, Vt. (AP) Everett Duncan scored a career-high 28 points and No. 1 seed Vermont beat UMBC 81-74 in the semifinals of the America East Conference Tournament on Tuesday night to advanced to the championship game.

Vermont hosts third-seed Hartford on Saturday.

Stef Smith scored 20 points and Anthony Lamb had 19 for the Catamounts (26-7). Smith's jumper with 5:50 before halftime broke a tie at 24 and Vermont went to the break with a 39-34 lead. Later, Smith hit a jumper with 15:38 to go and the Catamounts extended their lead to 48-38. UMBC then went on a 19-9 outburst to tie it at 57.

Duncan made back-to-back 3-pointers sandwiched between two free throws and and a layup by the Retrievers' R.J. Eytle-Rock and the Catamounts led 63-59. That launched a 7-0 run and they were largely in control the rest of the way.

Eytle-Rock scored a career-high 28 points for the Retrievers (16-17), Brandon Horvath 19 points and L.J. Owens 13.

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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