ITHACA, N.Y. – The Ithaca College men's basketball found themselves in a back-and-forth battle on Friday evening inside Ben Light Gymnasium against Skidmore and eventually wound up on the wrong end of a 91-83 decision. The Bombers fell to 9-15 on the season with the loss, but still qualified for the upcoming Liberty League Championship as Clarkson lost to Union.

Forward Joey Skoric and guard Nick Padilla led the way for Skidmore with 21 points apiece, and Skoric finished with a double-double. For Ithaca, freshman guard Nick Lemmond scored 18 points off the bench to lead the way for Ithaca. Forward Matthew Zenker, forward Alex Penders, and guard Thomas McKiernan also put up double digit scoring numbers for IC.

Skidmore started off the game strong with an 8-0 run powered by a pair of Aidan Roy three-pointers. However, Ithaca flipped the script out of a timeout, going on a 7-0 run of their own to cut the Skidmore lead to one.  Lemmond scored the final five points of Ithaca's run as the Bombers forced turnovers and parlayed them into scoring. 

Skidmore continued to hit their threes at a high rate, making four of their first six in the game. This prevented Ithaca from taking their first lead until there were under five minutes to go in the half. A 15-5 run propelled the Bombers ahead of Skidmore, and the game remained close the rest of the half, with Skidmore leading just 42-40 at the halftime break.

Ithaca started off the new half on a high note, with guard Cole Wissink hitting a corner three to score the first points out of the break and give Ithaca a one-point lead. The teams battled back and forth in the following minutes and kept the game close, but Ithaca committed six fouls in the first six minutes of the half, setting up Skidmore with an easy path to free throws. The bonus propelled Skidmore to a 16-6 run, bringing them up by eight with just under six minutes remaining in the game.

However, after a timeout, Ithaca came back ready to fight for victory, slowly chipping away at Skidmore's lead with an 11-3 run of their own, culminating with a game-tying Penders three-pointer. Nonetheless, Skidmore retook a multi-possession lead in the final minutes and did not look back, taking full control of the game in the final seconds.

Ithaca concludes the regular season tomorrow at 4 p.m. against Vassar. IC can earn the No. 5 seed with a win and a Skidmore loss on Saturday.