ITHACA, N.Y. – The Ithaca College men's basketball team returned to the hard court on Saturday afternoon looking to jump start the second half of its Empire 8 Conference season against first-place St. John Fisher. The contest came down to the wire, but in the end the Cardinals were able to hold off the Bombers' furious second-half rally in an 87-83 thriller at Ben Light Gymnasium. The loss drops Ithaca to 6-12 on the year and 2-7 in E8 action, while St. John Fisher improves to 13-5 with an 8-1 mark in conference play.
 
Trailing by five points with under a minute remaining, junior guard Marc Chasin drilled a deep pull-up three-pointer to pull Ithaca within two points at 83-81 with 22.3 seconds remaining. After the ensuing timeout, persistent defense forced St. John Fisher, which was out of timeouts, into a dead-ball five-seconds turnover. Unfortunately, IC was unable to convert the turnover into points on the ensuing possession, with the Cardinals sealing the game going 4-for-4 from the charity stripe down the stretch to hold off the Bombers.
 
Ithaca had a five players score in double-figures on the day, which included a team-high 21 points from Chasin. Junior guard Carrol Rich posted a season-high 15 points, all coming after halftime, while junior sharp-shooter Joey Flanagan added 14 points. Sophomore forward Peter Ezema and freshman guard Riley Thompson each chipped in 10 points apiece.  
 
The Bombers battled to hang with the potent Cardinals offense during the opening 20 minutes. Although Fisher shot 51.6-percent (16-for-31) from the field during the first half, Ithaca was not far off with a 45.2-percent (14-for-31) effort. Aiding IC's cause was a robust 54.5-percent (6-of-11) mark from three-point range.
 
Flanagan picked up where he left off on Thursday evening with a scorching hot shooting performance during the early going. He knocked down three triples in the first half, two of which came in the first three minutes of play, as IC jumped out to a 10-8 lead.
 
The game remained close deep into the half. Chasin was a big factor for the Bombers during the first session, scoring a game-high 15 points through 20 minutes. The third-year man drilled three-pointers on back-to-back possessions to lift Ithaca to short-lived 26-23 lead 6:59 left.
 
On the first, he drilled an off-balanced fade-away corner three-pointer with a hand in his face to tie the game at 23 apiece. He pushed Ithaca ahead on the run during the ensuing possession. He pulled up for a triple, kissing it off the window to put Ithaca in the lead.
 
The Cardinals turned to their All-American big man Keegan Ryan to gain the first significant separation in the contest. He scored 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting in the paint during the opening half. His hot spell helped spark a 16-2 St. John Fisher run over a 3:42-span, giving the Cardinals a 41-28 advantage with 3:17 left in the half.
 
Four Bombers help close the deficit to a manageable seven points at the break. Sophomore Matt Flood scored three points, while freshman Sebastian Alderete and sophomore Adam Kleckner each added a bucket during the 12-4 IC run to close the half. St. John Fisher led 45-38 at halftime.
 
Ithaca continued to hang within striking distance in the second stanza, but was unable to close the gap any closer than five points until the final stretch. Trailing 62-51, Ithaca embarked on a 9-1 run that pulled IC within a possession for the first time since the 6:02 mark of the first half. Thompson started the run with an open three-pointer, while Ezema cashed in with a fast-break lay-in to halve the deficit. Tyler Lemza and Chasin each added a pair of free throws to cap the scoring run.
 
Kleckner came up huge just a minute later, as the Bombers equalized the score at 66-66. First, he knocked down a long-range jumper from just inside the arc. On the ensuing defensive possession, he deflected the ball out of Keegan Ryan's hands, which turned into another lay-in by Ezema at the other end of the floor. IC finished with 12 steals on the day.
 
With 2:53 to go, Kleckner lifted Ithaca to its first lead since 26-23, when he split a pair of free throws at the charity stripe to make the score 75-74. The sophomore forward finished with a career-high six points on the afternoon.
 
Unfortunately, that would be the last time IC held the lead on the day, as the Cardinals were able to do just enough down the stretch to preserve the victory.
 
Ithaca returns to action on Tuesday, January 31, when it travels to Rochester, N.Y., for an 8:00 p.m. tip at Nazareth College.