Nazareth holds off Houghton and Stevens Edges Hartwick
Nazareth 81, Houghton 75
Junior Brad Ford scored 17 points to lead a five-player contingent in double figures for visiting Nazareth Tuesday as the Golden Flyers held on for an 81-75 men's basketball victory over Houghton.
The win snapped a four-game losing streak for the Golden Flyers, who improved to 12-8 overall. Houghton dropped to 0-19. It was Nazareth's second win of the season over the Highlanders.
Ford also grabbed 10 rebounds for the Golden Flyers, who led 39-38 at halftime but trailed 62-61 with less than eight minutes to go. Senior Tyshun Stephens scored 16 points, juniors Scott Hayford and Jack Giles had 14 and 13 respectively and freshman Maurice Mills scored 11.
Chris Confair scored a game-high 21 points for the Highlanders, who were outrebounded by Nazareth 50-31.
Stevens 62, Hartwick 55
The Stevens Institute of Technology men's basketball team earned a gritty, 62-55 win over Hartwick College Tuesday night in the Canavan Arena. With the win, the Ducks improve to 16-3 overall and 7-2 in the conference. Hartwick falls to 11-9 overall and 3-6 in the Empire 8.
On a night when they were struggling from the field and beyond the three-point line, the Ducks used strong defense and excellent free-throw shooting to defeat the rival Hawks.
Sheldon Jones finished with 22 points to lead Stevens, with Russ Thompson getting 20 points and four assists. Patrick Sabatino tallied 10 points, five rebounds, two blocks and two steals, with Matt Skrelja notching three points, four assists, a team-high 10 rebounds, three steals and one block in a typical solid all-around performance.
Hartwick shot 38.5 percent (20-for-52) from the field, 37.5 percent (6-for-16) from three and 9-for-16 (56.3 percent) at the line. Junior guard Christian Laputka
and junior forward Kyle Bradley
each scored 12 points to lead the Hawks.
Scranton 54, Ithaca 51
The Ithaca College men's basketball team (13-5) dropped a 54-51 decision to visiting Scranton (15-5) in non-conference action Tuesday night at Ben Light Gymnasium.
The Royals held Ithaca to 18 second-half points en route to its third straight victory, snapping Ithaca's four-game winning streak. The contest was the first the pair had played since 1948.
Scranton rewrote its 11-point halftime deficit to knot action at 47-47 at the five-minute mark of the second. The squads twice exchanged buckets for a 51-51 deadlock at 3:29. A Scranton three-pointer with 1:24 lingering in the game finalized all scoring in its favor, 54-51. Ithaca committed four turnovers in the final five minutes of action to dwindle scoring opportunities.