Men's Basketball | 1/24/2023 11:41:00 PM
ROCHESTER, NY - The St. John Fisher University men's basketball team hosted Nazareth College on Tuesday night for the Battle of the Beaks. After a back and forth battle, The Cardinals came out on top and defeated the Golden Flyers by a final score of 70-67. Fisher jumps to 11-5 overall, and are 7-2 in conference play. The Cardinals are now on a six game winning streak.
Ryan Gentile started the scoring off for the cross-town match up with a jump shot, assisted by Daniel Cook. Connor Recore tallied four points to bump the Cardinals up by three, just three minutes in. The Golden Flyers tied the game up at nine a piece with 14 minutes left and began to pull away. They reached their biggest lead of the night at 18-11, at the 9:50 minute mark. Jack Foley and Brendan McRoy both added two points apiece to slowly chip away at the deficit. The rest of the half was a back and forth battle, and Gentile hit a three point shot to bring the gap down to just two points with four minutes to go. The Golden Flyers held onto the lead for the remaining time and went into halftime with a 36-33 advantage.
Nazareth came out of halftime putting up the first basket of the second. Shortly after, Recore answered back with a layup, assisted by Cole Thompson. The Cardinals still had a little work to do to close the gap that Nazareth had created. With 10 minutes to go, Akinlana Popoola converted on a three-point play, changing the momentum for Fisher and bringing the deficit to two points. Foley added four points, Thompson added two and Cook added one to add to the run for the Cardinals. At the 5:10 minute mark, Recore tied the score up at 61-61 with a layup off an offensive rebound. Gentile converted on both free throw attempts with 4:43 to go to give Fisher their first lead of the second half. The Cardinals did not led up for the remaining three minutes. Gentile had the last two points for Fisher, ending the game by a final score of 70-67 in favor of the Cardinals.
Gentile led the way with 16 points on the night. He had three assists, and went 100% on free throw attempts. Recore had 14 points, 10 rebounds, two assists, and went 7-for-11 on his field goals. Foley finished with 11 points, four rebounds, one assist, and went 4-for-4 on his free throws.
Up next for the Cardinals, they will travel to Elmira College on Friday, Jan. 27th. The Empire 8 match up is set to start at 7:30pm.
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