NEWBURGH, N.Y. – Ryan Giordano (West Nyack, N.Y./Clarkstown South) beat the buzzer with a game-winning layup on Wednesday night at Mount Saint Mary as the Manhattanville College men's basketball team left Newburgh with a thrilling 63-61 conference victory. Now winners of four-straight games, the Valiants improve to 12-5 overall and 6-3 in the Skyline Conference, situated in second place in the conference's Gold Division.
With the game tied at 61-61, Ryan Graham looked to win it for the Knights with a three-pointer. The shot attempt was off the mark and caromed off the glass to
Tony Hastings (Clarkstown, N.Y./Clarkstown South), coming down with the board with five seconds to play. The grad student split the Mount Saint Mary defense with a bounce pass to Andrew Melilo, carrying the ball over midcourt. As a pair of Knights defenders swarmed on Melilo, the rookie delivered a bounce pass of his own to lead Giordano in stride to the paint where he rolled the ball off the glass, scoring with 0.3 seconds left. The Knights' desperation inbound heave was intercepted, allowing the Valiants to head home with an exhilarating win.
Giordano's winner put him atop the Valiants' scoring leaders for the night as four players reached double-figures. Giordano finished with 14 while collecting nine rebounds and blocking a shot. The Valiants' center was extremely efficient with a 7-for-8 shooting night.
Andrew Saint-Louis (Norwalk, Conn./Notre Dame Fairfield) scored 13, adding a pair of steals and two rebounds. Hastings continued his hot stretch from deep as he scored all 12 of his points from beyond the arc.
Tommy Lotito (Staten Island, N.Y./St. Peter's), meanwhile, played a full 40 minutes, scoring 11 with nine rebounds, seven steals and six assists.
Looking to avenge their loss to the Knights in Kennedy Gym earlier in the month, the Valiants trailed for a majority of the first half. After four separate lead changes across the opening four minutes, Dylan Csik hit a three-pointer that began an 8-0 Mount Saint Mary run to put the Knights up 14-7. Manhattanville remained behind for more than eight minutes before a Saint Louis three evened things up at 22-22 with 7:05 left in the half. The Knights fired back with three straight layups to got back ahead and would ultimately take a five point advantage into the half thanks to a Graham three pointer with 33 seconds remaining that moved the score to 36-31.
The Knights grabbed their largest advantage of the night following a 6-2 run to begin the second as Elijah Barnett put the home team up by nine, 42-33. The Valiants responded in short by rattling off 14 consecutive points over the next 5:06 with a Saint-Louis deep ball putting the Valiants in front 47-42 with 13:29 left. The teams would play to five separate tied scores over the remainder of the half with Graham connecting on a jumper with 59 seconds remaining to knot the game up 61-61 before Giordano would go on to provide the night's heroics.
Up Next
The Valiants are home in Kennedy Gymnasium on Saturday at 1 p.m. to take on Sarah Lawrence.
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