MANCHESTER – Come March – after 25-plus games of college basketball – freshmen aren’t considered freshmen anymore. So what month does Paul Chergey have his calendar on?

Five games into his first season with the Southern New Hampshire University men’s basketball team, Chergey isn’t playing like the usual rookie. With seven points in a 78-52 loss to rival Saint Anselm College on Tuesday, Dec. 5, the Bow native brought his scoring average to 11.4 points per game, good for second on the team.

Against the Hawks, he ran into foul trouble, earning his fifth whistle with about nine minutes to play, but so far, the 6-foot-5, 215-pound Chergey has fit in nicely as a slashing forward for Stan Spirou’s club.

Not shy about attacking the hoop, Chergey has reached double figures in three games thus far, recording a 20-point game in just his second collegiate start, a 10-point, sevenrebound game in the third and a 14-point, seven-assist game on Dec. 2.

What’s still coming along, though, is his defense. Chergey leads the team with eight blocks – and rejuvenated the crowd early in the second half with a break-away stuff of the Hawks’ Chris Vetrano – but he said he’s still making the transition from guarding high school players who couldn’t touch him to opponents who now are just as big, just as fast and usually more experienced.

“High school, because of my athleticism, was a lot easier,” said Chergey, who may have been hurt by some ticky-tack officiating more than anything Tuesday. “So here, I took it upon myself as more of a challenge, like people are questioning how good I am and if I can handle it. And I want to prove to all those people I can go out there and handle anything.”

So far, the Penmen are searching for the same kind of success. The loss to the Hawks put SNHU at 0-5, marking the team’s worst start in program history, but Spirou said he hopes “we bottomed out here tonight.”

The Penmen are young; only two seniors grace the roster, neither in the top five on the squad in scoring, and freshman guard Demetrius Jackson led the team in minutes entering Tuesday’s game.

But having young standouts like Chergey certainly gives the Penmen hope.

“We like the way he’s working, but he needs to learn some of the intricacies of the next level,” Spirou said. “That takes time and it takes experience, but we think he’s going to be a good one.”