Bangor, Maine  – UMBC senior forward Will Darley (Timonium, Md./Dulaney) scored a season-high 31 points, leading the visiting Retrievers to a 83-71 victory over Maine at Cross Insurance Center.

The Retrievers won their third straight game and improved to 16-7 overall and 7-3 in America East play. Maine fell to 5-20, 1-9.

Sophomore forward Joe Sherburne (Whitefish Bay, Wis.) added 16 points for the Retrievers and paced a balanced effort on the boards with five rebounds.

Leading 45-42 three minutes into the second half, Sherburne hit a jumper in the lane and  junior guard Jairus Lyles (Silver Spring, Md./DeMatha) converted a layup to put UMBC ahead by seven. After Maine's Wes Myers answered on the other end for the Black Bears, Darley scored seven consecutive points to push UMBC ahead, 56-44, at the 13:04 mark.

Maine would whittle the lead back to 56-49, but a Sherburne trey triggered a 16-4 surge which provided the visitors with their largest lead of the game at 72-53 with 6:35 remaining.

The Black Bears took advantage of some rare Retriever turnovers and scored 12 consecutive points to cut the deficit to 76-69 with 1:54 remaining. But UMBC hit 7-of-8 free throws in the 1:31 to seal the victory.

Darley hit 11-of-20 shots from the floor, 6-of-10 from behind the arc and all three free throw attempts and added three assists in 30 minutes.     

UMBC missed its first six 3-point field goal attempts, but converted nine of their final 15 to finish at 42.9 percent for the game. They shot 46.6 percent from the floor and sunk 20-of-25 free throw attempts.

Myers led all scorers with 33 points, including 22 in the second half.

The host Black Bears jumped out to a 9-2 lead and held the advantage for the majority of the first 20 minutes. Maine led, 25-20, at the 8:25 mark, but Darley hit UMBC's first trey of the half to cap an 8-2 run and give the visitors a 28-27 lead with 5:57 to play.

Another Darley three-pointer extended the margin briefly to 34-29, but Maine hit seven consecutive free throws in the latter stages of the half to pull even at 37-all. UMBC junior guard Jourdan Grant (Bowie, Md./Archbishop Spalding) buried a trey from the deep left corner to send the Retrievers into the locker room with a 40-37 advantage.

UMBC returns home to play four of the next five games at RAC Arena, starting with a game versus Hartford on Thursday, Feb. 9.

Notes: UMBC has only won more than 16 games five times in its 30-year NCAA Division I history… Junior guard Rodney Elliott (Baltimore, Md./John Carroll) scored seven points and has moved into a tie for 19th place in school history with 956 points… Darley is averaging 19.8 points per game in ten America East contests.