Marcus Reaches 1,000-Point Milestone In 101-95 Ithaca Victory Over St. John Fisher
ITHACA, N.Y. - The Ithaca men's basketball team (11-2, 4-0 Empire 8) had five players score in double figures and remained perfect in conference play with a 101-95 victory over St. John Fisher (7-6, 3-1 Empire 8) Saturday evening at Ben Light Gymnasium. Junior guard Jordan Marcus (Solomon Schechter/West Orange, N.J.) scored 24 points to lead Ithaca, and surpassed 1,000 career points.
Marcus is the 20th player in program history to reach the 1,000-point plateau.
The Bombers shot 53.6 percent from the floor to tally its ninth consecutive victory, the longest winning streak since the 2008-09 season when Ithaca twice had 12 wins in a row.
With five in double figures for the seventh time this season, a duo of Bombers earned double doubles. Senior center Phil Barera (Belmont/Belmont, Mass.) matched his career-best 20 rebounds to lead the game and added 18 points, while sophomore guard Sean Rossi (Sparta/Sparta, N.J.) recorded his sixth of the season on 17 points and a game-high 11 assists.
Sophomore forward Andrei Oztemel (Staples/Westport, Conn.) added 21 points for the Blue & Gold and senior guard Chris Cruz-Rivas (West Genesee/Syracuse) 16.
Though the Cardinals claimed the first points of the game, Cruz-Rivas drained one of the Bombers’ 14 three pointers at 16:25 to secure a 7-4 lead that the Bombers never surrendered.
Ithaca used a 17-6 run to take a 26-14 advantage at 11:34, a double-digit lead that it maintained for over six minutes of action. But the Cardinals would come to life on an 11-4 run of their own to bring the game within five and later four on one of their six first-frame treys. Oztemel hit a three with four seconds lingering on the clock to send the game to intermission with the Bombers ahead, 50-43.
The teams went bucket-for-bucket over the first seven minutes of the second stint as Ithaca edged the Cardinals 13-12, but nine unanswered, highlighted by a pair of Oztemel three pointers, increased the gap to 16 at 7:17. Barera layups twice extended the lead to 17 at 3:59 and 3:14, although the Cardinals answered with 11 consecutive to improve their deficit to six with 40 seconds remaining in the game.
With St. John Fisher forced to foul, Ithaca iced the game as Marcus and Cruz-Rivas combined for five-of-six from the charity stripe to secure the 101-95 conference victory.
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