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2013 Empire 8 Men's Basketball Champions

Men's Basketball

Empire 8 Champs! Men's Basketball Overwhelms Stevens To Claim E8 Title

Box Score

HOBOKEN, N.J. -- The Ithaca College (19-8) men's basketball team won its second consecutive Empire 8 tournament championship with a 70-55 win over top-seeded Stevens Institute of Technology (22-5) at the Ducks' Canavan Arena. With the win and conference title, Ithaca College has earned automatic qualification to the NCAA Division III Men's Basketball Championships. The tournament bracket will be announced Monday afternoon.

Ithaca defeated Stevens for the second time this season, and the Bombers handed the Ducks two of their five overall losses so far this year. Travis Warech led the way for Ithaca with 25 points that included three 3-point baskets and eight points from the free-throw line, where the Bombers were an effective 15-for-19 in the game.

Frank Mitchell earned Empire 8 tournament Most Valuable Player honors. He had 11 points in the championship game with six rebounds and an assist. Mitchell had 21 points in Ithaca's semifinal win over St. John Fisher.

Ithaca's only deficit of the game was after Stevens scored the first basket of the game, but the Bombers responded with a 3-pointer from Sean Rossi and never trailed again. There were two ties midway through the first half, the last of which came at 14-14 with 12:13 left, but the Bombers responded with three straight 3-pointers. Two of those came from Warech and the third from Joey Ross.

The Bombers led 34-27 at halftime and extended the margin to as many as 16 points midway through the second half after opening the half with a 17-8 run over the first nine minutes. Tom Sweeney capped the run with a jumper, assisted by Sean Rossi. Rossi added seven assists in the game to his NCAA Division III record, set Friday night, and now has 933 assists in his career.

Eli Maravich scored nine points and Sweeney added eight for Ithaca. Warech led the Bombers with 10 rebounds.

Warech joined Mitchell on the all-tournament team along with Matt Skrelja of Stevens, Justin Plata of St. John Fisher and Chris Jeffers of Utica.

This will be Ithaca's 12th trip to the NCAA Tournament, and the Bombers have made the tournament field for three consecutive years including this season.