CORTLAND, N.Y.- The Ithaca College men's basketball team fell to the Cortland Red Dragons 80-61 on the road on Thursday night, bringing the Bombers record to 0-2. 

The Bombers quickly took an early 3-2 lead against Cortland with Evan Cabral making a free throw and a layup shortly after that to take the lead. However, the Red Dragons went on to score 13 of the next 15 points to take a commanding lead. Ithaca fought back with a layup from Matthew Zenker and three-pointer from Cole Wissink to cut Cortland's lead to 17-10. The Red Dragons then scored 16 consecutive points and 23 of the last 29 points to close out the half with the Bombers trailing 40-16.

At the start of the second half the Bombers started strong with an 8-3 run. Jaylon O'Neal started the stretch with a jump shot, followed by a three-pointer from Alex Penders and three more points from Cabral. Then after a Cortland three-pointer, the Bombers continued to claw back into the game with five of the next seven points, bringing the score to 48-29 in favor of Cortland. 

From there, both teams went back-and-forth with Ithaca struggling to gain ground on Cortland over the next few minutes, leaving the Bombers trailing 65-46 with just over seven minutes remaining in the game. Then the Bombers started to catch fire as they scored eight straight points on layups from O'Neal, Lemmond, and two from Zenker to cut the Red Dragons lead to 11. Ithaca and Cortland then traded points, until Cortland started to take control again with an 8-0 run of their own to halt the Bombers comeback, helping them finish out the game 80-61.

Cabral led the Bombers with 19 points, including going 3-5 from beyond the arc. Zenker also reached double digits for the Bombers with 10 points on the night.

Ithaca is in action on the road on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. against (RV) Hamilton College.