Men's Basketball

First-Place RIT Escapes Binder With 59-58 Win Over Hartwick Men's Basketball

ONEONTA, NY - Marcus Lowe's two free throws with 15.1 seconds to play proved to be the difference as RIT downed Hartwick 59-58 in an epic men's basketball battle on Sunday at Binder Gymnasium. The Tigers trailed by a point before Lowe sank the front end of a one-and-one to tie the score and drained the second to give RIT the lead. Hartwick had a chance to win the game in the final seconds but the attempt did not find the mark.

The Tigers, with the victory, stay perfect in the Empire 8 at 8-0. They up their overall mark to 12-4. The Hawks fall to 7-9 and 1-7.

The Tigers opened up a 57-52 lead with just 1:44 to play on a Shawn Roe three-pointer to take their biggest lead of the afternoon. Jan Cocozziello (Scotch Plains, NJ) came back with a jumper and following a Hartwick timeout, senior Mike Tracy (Morris, NY) would come up with a steal with 1:17 remaining to give the Hawks a chance to cut the lead to within one or tie with a three-pointer.

Cocozziello was fouled going to the basket and calmly sank the subsequent free throws making the score 57-56 with under a minute to play. The Tigers would turn the ball over again on their next possession and Cocozziello would drain another 15-footer to give the Hawks the edge, 58-57, with 26 seconds left.

After Lowe was fouled on the opposite end and he hit the pair from the foul line, the Hawks got the ball to half court and called timeout with 10 ticks left. The Tigers gave the Hartwick backcourt some difficulty inbounding the ball, but the ball made its way to Cocozziello who looked for a game-winning score. The RIT defense did its job and made the senior guard have to settle for a 25-foot three-point attempt with less than two seconds left and his effort fell just short.

Cocozziello, who entered the game averaging 32 points against RIT in six previous meetings, did not disappoint as he scored a game-high 27. Mark Blazek (Erie, PA) finished with 11. The pair also combined for six Hartwick three-pointers. Albe Hulick (Greenville, NY) grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.

In the first half of play, Hartwick bolted out of the gate with 11 unanswered points to take a 15-2 lead after six minutes of action. The rattled Tigers settled down and would chip away at the Hartwick advantage with a 21-8 run over the next 12 minutes to even the score at 23 with just over two minutes to play before the break. RIT would briefly take a one-point lead at the 1:27 mark, but Blazek would hit a three-pointer with 51 seconds left, and another just before the half to give the Hawks a 30-25 lead going into the second half.

The game was closely contested in the second half as the lead changed hands 11 times and the score was tied on six different occasions in the period. Neither team was able to build more than a four-point lead until Roe's three gave RIT the five-point edge leading up to the wild final two minutes of action.

RIT edged the Hawks on the glass by just a single rebound in the game, 35-34, and the two teams combined to turn the ball over just 17 times. The Hawks managed to convert the 10 RIT miscues into 21 points on the day.

Mark Carson and Scott Young saved the day for the Tigers in the first half as the duo combined for 21 points to keep the team in the game in an overall cold-shooting first half. Young and Roe would end the contest with 15 points each. Carson scored 14 and pulled down a game-high 10 boards.

The Hawks are back home next weekend with a pair of Empire 8 games. The team hosts St. John Fisher on Friday night and Nazareth on Sunday afternoon.