Moon Township, Pa. (January 3, 2015)—Mount St. Mary's dropped its Northeast Conference opener, 70-45, at Robert Morris on Saturday afternoon.  The cold-shooting Mountaineers hit just 25.0 percent (13-of-52) from the field in the loss.

Junior Gregory Graves notched his second career double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds for the Mountaineers (4-8, 0-1 NEC) while junior Andrew Smeathers added a season-high 14 points.

Lucky Jones led four Robert Morris players in double figures with 17 points. Rodney Prior and Marcquise Reed added 12 points each with Elijah Minnie tallying 10 in the win.

The Mount offense has been struggled, converting just 24-for-102 (23.5 percent) from the field over the past two games.

The Colonials (5-8, 1-0 NEC) took control of the game early, racing to a 20-3 lead in the opening 10 minutes.  Smeathers stopped the early run with a three-pointer, but RMU stretched the advantage to 30-8 with 4:21 left in the half.

The Mount scored six consecutive points on a Smeathers free throw, a Graves lay-up on the fast break, and a Will Miller three-pointer, but Marcquise Reed converted a four-point play with 2.6 seconds left in the half to make the score 36-16 at the break.

Mount St. Mary's opened the second half with an 8-to-4 run to cut the deficit to 38-24, but would get no closer the rest of the way.

The Mountaineers return to action on Monday, January 5, with a 7:00 p.m. matchup at Wagner.  The Mount won at Wagner, 77-72, in the NEC semifinals last March.

Game Notes:  The Mountaineers are 1-15 over their last 16 NEC regular season games with Robert Morris…However, the Mount has posted four NEC Tournament wins at RMU over that span, including an 88-71 victory in the NEC Championship game last year…The Mount has not won an NEC regular season game at RMU since a 64-62 victory on Feb. 25, 2006.