ANNADALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. – The Ithaca College men's basketball team earned its first Liberty League victory of the season on Saturday the Bombers defeated the hosts from Bard College, 88-73, at the Stevenson Athletic Center. With the win, Ithaca is now 4-2 on the season and plays one more game, on December 7, before the New Year.
The Bombers shot 47.2-percent (34-for-72) in the contest and made 14-of-31 attempts (45.2%) from 3-point range. IC also dominated on the boards, pulling down 55 rebounds to Bard's 31, which led to 15 second chance points. Half of Ithaca's 88 points scored on Saturday came from its bench as well.
It was a tight contest over the opening 9:20 as either team led by more than four points. At the 9:53 mark,
Zach Warech drilled a 3-pointer to give Ithaca a 22-16 lead to mark the largest disparity at that point, but the Raptors battled back to knot the contest at 27-27 with 4:52 to go.
The Bombers answered with a 17-6 run over the next 4:21 to establish an 11-point cushion at 44-33. Bard would close out the half with a jumper with eight seconds remaining to head into intermission trailing 44-35.
In the second half, IC led by at least nine points over the final 20 minutes of action, and went up by 17 points, 64-47, after a
Luka Radovich 3-pointer with 14:56 left in the contest.
Warech led all scorers with 17 points in 25 minutes off the bench, as he went 6-of-8 overall and 5-of-6 from 3-point range with three assists.
Radovich tallied 12 points with six rebounds, while
Liam Spellman and
Jack Stern each notched 11 points in the win. Stern pulled down eight boards as he went 4-for-5 in the game, while Spellman was 4-for-5 as well and 3-of-4 from distance with three rebounds.
Skylar Sinon added nine points, while
Andrew Geschickter,
George Sikoryak III and
Triston Wennersten each scored six points. Wennersten ripped down 11 rebounds in 22 minutes of action, while Sikoryak had nine rebounds and three assists.
Noah Downing chipped in five points.
The Bombers host the University of Rochester on December 7 at 8 p.m. before taking nearly a month off from competition.
