BALTIMORE – UMBC graduate student forward Khydarius Smith scored a career high 25 points as the host Retrievers held off the Sacred Heart Pioneers, 85-80, at the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena on Friday morning. The game drew more than 600 elementary school children for "Midday Madness."
 
Smith converted 9-of-11 field goal attempts and went 7-for-9 from the free throw line. Junior guard Marcus Banks Jr. scored a season best 21 points and added four rebounds while sophomore guard Dion Brown contributed 10 points and recorded a career high seven assists.
 
UMBC (2-2) led 44-35 at intermission after leading by as many as 13 points. Sacred Heart, however, opened the second half on a 10-2 run to trim the deficit to 46-45 after a jumper by senior guard Kyle McGee at the 17:01 mark.
 
Sacred Heart (2-2) took their first lead of the game at 51-50 with 13:50 remaining on a second chance layup by sophomore forward Raymond Espinal-Guzman. The visitors took their largest lead of the game, 57-53, with 11:01 left on a fast break layup by junior guard Aiden Carpenter after he came up with a steal.
 
The Retrievers went on an 8-2 spurt to reclaim a 61-59 edge at the 8:09 mark. Junior guard Devan Sapp capped the stretch with a tough bucket in the paint following a turnover.
 
The two squads went back-and-forth, and it was a one possession game for the next seven minutes. Sacred Heart took their final lead at 80-79 on a trey by graduate student guard Joey Reilly with just over a minute left.
 
UMBC then went ahead for good as Smith converted two clutch free throws with fifty seconds on the clock. After the Pioneers misfired on their next trip down, Banks sank two big shots of his own from the stripe to make it 83-80 with 27 ticks left.
 
Reilly then misfired on the potential game-tying triple with 13 seconds left and Brown put the game away at 85-80 with two more free throws in the closing seconds.
 
Rasheem Solomon led the visitors with 22 points on 7-of-13 shooting while Reilly added 19 points.
 
UMBC hit 50.8 (30-of-59) percent of their field goal attempts, went 6-for-19 (31.6 percent) from deep, and made 19-of-26 (73.1 percent) free throws.
 
The Retrievers held the Pioneers to 39.2 percent shooting as they hit just 29-of-74 field goals. Sacred Heart out rebounded the hosts by a 43-36 margin.
 
UMBC outscored Sacred Heart by a 33-12 margin in fast break points.
 
The Retrievers will welcome Loyola Maryland on Sunday at 1:00 p.m.