Merrimack headed back to NEC Championship game after 61-51 win over Le Moyne

NORTH ANDOVER — Merrimack is headed back to the Northeastern Conference championship game. Only this time, the Warriors will have a chance to dance their way to the NCAA Tournament.
Merrimack beat Le Moyne 61-51 on Saturday in the NEC semifinals to earn its second straight trip to the championship game. The Warriors won the NEC Championship last season, which comes with an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament. But Merrimack was in its final year of D-I transition last March and wasn't eligible for the NCAA Tournament, so runner-up Fairleigh Dickinson received the bid and upset No. 1 Purdue in the first round.
Merrimack will host Wagner in the NEC Championship game on Tuesday night. The Seahawks were the No. 6 seed in the tournament and beat No. 1 Central Connecticut on Saturday in the other NEC semifinal.
Tuesday's game will be broadcast nationally on ESPN2.
Wagner beat Merrimack 71-65 in North Andover earlier this season. The Warriors won a 60-44 game a few weeks later at Wagner.
Freshman Budd Clark led the Warriors on Saturday. He scored 24 points and was the only Warrior in double figures. The true freshman point guard was 8 for 8 from the free-throw line and 8 for 13 from the field.
Clark picked up the slack in the second half after NEC Player of the Year Jordan Derkack left the game momentarily with an ankle injury. Derkack started the second half and played the rest of the game but was limited to six points and only attempted nine shots from the field.
Derkack still gutted out an impressive effort and led the Warriors with 38 minutes.
"I think [Clark] sensed that he had to do a lot of the heavy lifting as far as the ball handling goes," said Merrimack coach Joe Gallo. "The second game of the year, Jordan went down with his initial ankle injury and Budd totally took over that game. It's amazing. He's 18 years old. We have 25 year olds on our team. It's awesome to have a true, true 18-year-old kid out there having his way."
Clark's freshman season has been one for the record books. He was named the NEC Rookie of the Year earlier this week. He's one of the top players in the country in assists and defensive steals.
"I never knew it would be like this," Clark said of his freshman season. "I just knew to come to practice and play hard. Be myself at all times and maybe that will get me on the floor."
O'Connell's two triples changed the tide
The Warriors trailed 15-9 and looked out of sorts in the game's first eight minutes.
After a timeout, 7-footer Jacob O'Connell came off the bench and hit a pair of 3-point shots on back-to-back possessions to tie the game and awaken Lawler Arena.
"They went zone, and it took a little of our spunk away," Gallo said. "He banged those threes and we said to the guys, 'OK, he bailed you out for those last few minutes. Can we go back to being Merrimack?' So Jacob was huge.
"He had 28 points against Wagner earlier this year and then his shoulder popped out, so he's been dealing with a torn labrum. Right when that happened, he was getting ready to take off. He hasn't practiced a whole lot because of it, but I think he's getting comfortable again. He's a fifth-year grad student who played on a Sweet 16 team last year, so he isn't fazed by a lot."
Merrimack's defense reigns supreme
Gallo did the math.
Le Moyne was 11-4 when they attempted at least 30 3-point shots this season, and they were 4-12 when they didn't.
On Saturday, they were only able to attempt 20, which is in line with what the Warriors allowed against them in the regular season (17 and 21).
The Warriors also forced Le Moyne to turn the ball over five times on shot clock violations.
"That three-quarter (press) was great," Gallo said. "They want to go fast. They scored 85 points last game. Going back to when we met in our D-II days, that was NE-10 basketball. Fly up and down and shoot a lot of threes.
"We didn't want to allow them to just run up, dribble by one guy and get an easy shot. It was rare that they didn't start their offense with more than 22 or 23 seconds on the shot clock. That helped us."