Even with his 19 points, Moore’s efforts were not enough to give the Hawks a win. Courtesy of HartfordHawks.com

With a 90-78 win over Holy Cross, the Hawks are back into flight. An offensive surge midway through the second half helped the University of Hartford men’s basketball team pull away from Holy Cross on Saturday at the Chase Family Arena.

Ending a five-game skid, the Hawks improve to 3-7 while the Crusaders, who came into the contest riding a three-game win-streak, drop to 5-4.

A Nate Sikma triple seven minutes in broke a 10-10 tie and provided the Hawks with an advantage they would not relinquish for the remainder of the contest.

Leading 39-33 at the intermission behind 10 first half points from Mark Nwakamma and all 14 of Evan Cooper’s tallies, Hartford took control and expanded that advantage into double-figures thanks to a Sikma jumper at the 16:53 mark.

Holy Cross didn’t go down without a fight though, as it came back to cut a 12-point Hartford edge down to two.

A three-pointer from Malcolm Miller, who led the Crusaders with 18 points, sparked a 10-0 run that made it a 50-48 game with 13:07 left to play.

Moore had 11 of his points during Hartford’s game-deciding rally, a stretch in which the Hawks outscored the Crusaders, 22-9, over a seven and a half minutes span.

Turning in a hot 8-for-11 shooting performance while forcing three Holy Cross turnovers during that spurt, Nwakamma added seven points to help give the Hawks a commanding 72-57 lead with 5:55 to go.

For the first time in over 10 years, six Hawks scored in double figures for Hartford, which set a season-high in points. Junior Yolonzo Moore II led all scorers with 21 points to help the team reach the 90-point mark, a feat that has not been accomplished since a home game against Lafayette on Dec. 4, 2008.

Not far behind Moore in the scoring column was  Nwakamma, who registered 19 points.  Cooper added 14 points while junior Corban Wroe rounded out the scoring for the starting five with 11 points, a career-high.

Off the bench,  Sikma and Wes Cole had 15 and 10 points, respectively.

Following the big win against Holy Cross, Moore II led the team in scoring for the second-straight game, but his 19 points weren’t enough as the Hawks fell at neighboring rival Central Connecticut, 73-59 on Tuesday.

Hartford led by five early, using a Cole jumper at 12:17 to take a 13-8 edge over the Blue Devils.

Seeing that lead dissipate down to one point on back-to-back Central Connecticut buckets, Sikma knocked down his second three-pointer of the night to push the Hawks’ edge back to four with 10:17 minutes left.

That Sikma triple would be Hartford’s last field goal for quite some time while the advantage also proved to be the visiting team’s final of the contest.

An 8-0 spurt put Central Connecticut ahead for the first time at 20-16 with 5:54 remaining.

With 5:02 left in the opening stanza, Cole was fouled from three point range and converted on all three free throw attempts to end Hartford’s five minute scoring drought and close the gap to 20-19. That deficit would be quickly extended to eight, though, as the Blue Devils scored seven points within a 47 second span to go ahead by, 27-19, at the 3:15 mark

Hartford showed life down the stretch, ending a nine-minute field goal dry spell with an Oren Faulk layup and making it four unanswered points on a pair of Moore II free throws.

That momentum wouldn’t be enough for the Hawks to close out the stanza as Central Connecticut used another rally to take a 39-27 lead before the half ended.

A deep three at the buzzer from De’Angelo Speech capped that Blue Devils’ 8-0 run and provided the home team with a 12-point margin at the break.

Central Connecticut opened up a 16-point advantage five minutes out of the break, scoring nine of the first 14 points of the stanza to take what was then its largest lead.

The Hawks refused to go down without a fight, as they brought their deficit down to 10 on two occasions with Cole’s second three-pointer of the half making it a 53-43 contest with 10:49 left.

Using five more unanswered points on a Moore layup and a Nwakamma three from the top of the key, Hartford chipped its deficit down to six points with 8:18 on the clock before Central Connecticut pulled away for good, building an 18-point advantage with 2:58 left by outscoring the Hawks, 19-9 down the stretch.

Malcolm McMillan led four Blue Devils in double figures with 15 points while Faronte Drakefor and Kyle Vinales each added 14 points.

After turning in one of their best shooting efforts from the floor on Saturday against Holy Cross, the Hawks struggled to convert from the floor as they connected on just 34.8 percent of their shots.

The Blue Devils were consistent throughout the game, shooting 53.1 percent in the first and finishing at a 52.6 percent clip.

Now at 3-8 on the season, Hartford returns to action on Sunday when it heads to Sacred Heart for a 2 p.m. matchup.