ITHACA, N.Y. – The Ithaca College men's basketball team returned home after a three-game road trip and took on Liberty League foe RIT inside Ben Light Gymnasium on Tuesday night. Ithaca found itself locked in a shootout all night long with the visiting Tigers and came away with a 98-94 victory to improve to 8-5 on the season and 4-2 in Liberty League play, while RIT drops to 4-7 and 2-3.
It was a tight matchup throughout the first half as the teams battled through five lead changes and four ties on the way to a 46-40 tally in favor of Ithaca by intermission.
The Tigers jumped out a 4-0 lead in the opening 1:10, but
George Sikoryak III got IC on the board with a 3-pointer on the next possession. RIT would maintain its lead until Jake Stern put in a layup to tie the contest at 9-9 with 16:06 left in the half and then another bucket from Stern a minute later gave the Bombers their first lead of the contest at 11-9.
RIT went back ahead at 15-13 with 12:28 to go but a 3-pointer from
Liam Spellman at the 11:04 mark vaulted the Bombers back in front, 18-17. A pair of free throws from the Tigers just under 40 seconds later gave RIT its final lead of the contest at 19-18 as
Zach Warech flipped the edge back to the Bombers for good with a 3-pointer six seconds later.
IC would establish a 10-point cushion at 39-29 with 3:15 on the clock as
Andrew Geschickter connected from beyond the arc. RIT would close to within four points in the final minute, 44-40, but the Bombers had the final say in the half on a layup from
Triston Wennersten with 29 ticks remaining.
Wennersten, who had a breakout game and finished the night with a double-double on 19 points and 10 rebounds, tallied 13 points in the first half on 6-of-9 shooting in just eight minutes of action with five rebounds. He played 20 minutes on the night and went 8-for-12 from the field and 3-for-3 from distance.
Spellman had nine of his 18 points in the first half with three assists. Spellman finished the evening going 7-for-12 overall and 3-of-6 from 3-point range with six rebounds and four assists.
The Bombers scored 17 second chance points off 11 offensive rebounds in the first half as well. IC pulled down 20 offensive rebounds on the night.
In the first half, RIT shot 54.8-percent from the field (17-for-31), while Ithaca went 19-for-43 (44.2%). Despite those exceptional offensive numbers in 20 minutes of action, it was even better in the second half as the two teams putting on a shooting clinic.
RIT made 22-of-32 attempts in the second half to shoot 68.8-percent and the Bombers were 20-for-32 (62.5%) en route to 106 combined points over the final 20 minutes (54 for RIT, 52 for Ithaca).
Although RIT outscored Ithaca by a basket in the second half, it looked as though the Bombers were going to run away with the game with just over seven minutes to play. A 3-pointer from Wennersten with 7:08 left in the contest gave IC its largest lead of the night at 82-67, and that double-digit lead would stand until a layup from the Tigers made it 93-86 with 1:31 left.
RIT pulled to within two points at 93-91 with 50 seconds remaining as a jumper and 3-pointer cut the game down to a single possession.
A jumper from
Skylar Sinon with 25 seconds to go gave IC a four-point edge, but the Tigers came right down the floor and drilled a 3-pointer to make it a one-point game with 12 seconds to go. IC would go on to win the contest after Sinon made both attempts at the line and Spellman went 1-for-2 with less than a second to play.
Sinon added 10 points and three rebounds in the game, while
Alex Barron played a crucial role off the bench with 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting with four rebounds.
Sikoryak added nine points with three boards and three assists, and Geschickter and Stern each tallied eight points. Stern also pulled down seven rebounds. Warech contributed seven points, while
Logan Wendell and
Noah Downing combined to score the other six points for IC.
Ithaca remains at home this weekend for a 7:30 p.m. tip against Skidmore on Friday, January 21 and a 4 p.m. matchup with Union on Saturday.
