America East Rookie of the Year Nick Johnson scored 14 points for UNH in Sunday's America East tourney loss to UMass-Lowell. (Courtesy photo by Gil Talbot/UNH Athletics)

DURHAM, NH – Junior Nick Guadarrama (Newington, Conn.) paced three University of New Hampshire men’s basketball players in double digits with 16 points, and the third-seeded Wildcats narrowed a 21-point deficit to three before dropping Sunday afternoon’s 72-64 matchup to No. 6 seed UMass Lowell in the America East Championship quarterfinal matchup at Lundholm Gym.

UML (10-11) received a game-high 28 points from Obadiah Noel to punch its ticket to the America East semifinals for the first time in program history. The River Hawks will face No. 1 seed UMBC on Saturday, March 6 (2 p.m.).

“I know this has been an uncommon year, but four times has been a lot to play UNH,” said Head Coach Pat Duquette. “They’re always gut-wrenching games. I thought this might actually be the first time we wouldn’t have a close game, but they just kept fighting. That’s really hard to do with no fans, to keep your kids engaged, and there was no quit in them whatsoever.”

Junior Jayden Martinez (Cibolo, Texas) and redshirt freshman Nick Johnson (Bronx, N.Y.), the America East Rookie of the Year, each finished with 14 points for UNH (10-9). Martinez grabbed a game-high eight rebounds, one more than Johnson, and redshirt freshman Blondeau Tchoukuiegno (Montreal, Quebec) tallied six points, six assists, five rebounds and three steals.

“Proud of our guys persevering through this season,” UNH head coach Bill Herrion said. “‘We didn’t know if we’d get through the season with the pandemic … Our guys deserve a lot of credit for hanging in there. Their attitudes have been great.”

UMass Lowell went ahead 55-34 on Noel’s 3-pointer with 9:31 remaining when UNH mounted its comeback with a 28-10 run over the next eight-plus minutes. The Wildcats closed within 65-62 on a left-corner 3 from graduate student Chris Lester (Barrington, Ill.) with 1:18 left. Guadarrama knocked down a pair of free throws to make it 67-64 with 44 seconds remaining before the River Hawks fended off the ‘Cats by scoring the game’s final five points.

“Not the way you want to end the season, but I think there were a lot of positives,” Herrion added.

(UML Athletics Communications contributed to this report.)

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