PATCHOGUE, N.Y. - The Manhattanville men's basketball team fell on the road to St. Joseph's-Long Island on Wednesday night. Tommy Lotito (Staten Island, N.Y./St. Peter's) drilled a three-pointer with three seconds remaining in regulation to send the contest to overtime, but the Golden Eagles were able to pull away in the extra period, 85-81. With the loss, the Valiants slip to 16-8, with a 9-6 mark in conference play.
Three Valiants finished in double figures, with Lotito leading the field with 26 points, adding ten rebounds, four assists, and a game-high three steals, notching his fourth double-double of the season. He was flanked by Andrew Saint-Louis (Norwalk, Conn./Notre Dame Fairfield), tallying 17 points with a team-high 6-for-9 from the charity stripe. Rounding out the double figures, Tony Hastings (Clarkstown, N.Y./Clarkstown South) finished with twelve points. Ryan Giordano (West Nyack, N.Y./Clarkstown South) paced the Valiants in the assists column, dishing out a career-high seven dimes.
In what proved to be an even-keeled first half, the Valiants shot 45.2 percent from the field, while their counterparts pieced together a 46.7 percent clip from the floor. The Golden Eagles found the game's first four points, using the free-throw line and a jumper to get out in front in the first two minutes. The Valiants would then produce a 12-6 run, using five points from Hastings and four from Saint-Louis over the next four minutes to mount the 12-10 lead. St. Joe's would take control of the game once again, sparking a run of their own spanning the next five minutes of action. The 14-7 run was kindled by the Golden Eagles leading scoring on the night, Alec Tabada who finished with 22 points on 6-for-13 shooting and perfect 10-for-10 from the line. Tabada's and-one play capped the run, pushing the score to 24-18 in SJLI's favor. In the final nine minutes of gameplay, both teams would trade baskets back and forth with no lead amassing a gap bigger than three points. The Golden Eagles would sink a layup off the fingers of Xavier Allen with thirty seconds remaining in the first half to put St. Joe's ahead 38-35 as the game headed into the break.
The second half delivered more of the same that elapsed over the last nine minutes of the first half, as both teams would continue to trade blows, not mounting a lead larger than five points. The Golden Eagles would earn the largest lead of the second half when Ryan McNeely finished a layup from Spencer Malloy with just over eleven minutes to play in regulation, leading to the 55-50 margin. Manhattanville would find their first lead since 13:47 in the first half in crunch time, with Hastings driving into the lane and finishing off a pass from Giordano for the 65-64 lead. Malloy would subsequently head down the court and hit a layup of his own to take the lead right back from the Valiants. Two Malloy free throws with sixteen seconds left pushed the margin to three, 68-65, evoking the Lotito heave from deep with three ticks left to tie the game at 68 all and send it to overtime.
In the overtime period, The Golden Eagles would quickly snatch the lead, as Terrin Roy drilled a three-pointer. Manhattanville would take the lead later in the overtime period, following a Giordano hook-shot for the 75-73 margin. St. Joseph's would close out the extra period on a 12-8 run, hitting on 3-of-4 from the field and a perfect 4-for-4 from the line, to see the Golden Eagles fight off the Valiants in the final five minutes to an 85-81 victory.
Up Next
The Valiants stay on the road, heading to Bronxville, N.Y. to take on Sarah Lawrence for the regular season finale.
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