No. 14 St. Mary’s Suffers First Loss at Baruch
New York, N.Y. - The Baruch College men's basketball team used a 16-7 run at the start of the second half to overcome a seven-point halftime deficit and hand No. 14 St. Mary's College of Maryland a 73-54 setback Saturday afternoon for the Seahawks first loss of the season.
Baruch's sophomore guard Lionel Hilaire (Far Rockaway, N.Y./Archbishop Molloy) poured in a game-high 19 points in the second half alone to extend the Bearcats' win streak to six straight games. Senior Steven Bader (North Bergen, N.J./North Bergen) registered a double-double on 17 points and 16 rebounds after picking up a dozen points in the second stanza.
The Seahawks (7-1), who are ranked 14th in this week's D3hoops.com Top 25, notched their lowest field goal percentage of the season as St. Mary's only shot 36.5% from the floor, while the team's leading scorer, junior guard Camontae Griffin (Baltimore, Md./Dunbar), was held to only 10 first-half points.
After an early 9-9 tie at 14:35 that resulted from a long-range shot from Griffin, St. Mary's went on to build a modest advantage, leading by eight (24-16) with 6:10 remaining in the first half. A short 7-2 spurt by Baruch (8-2) knocked down the lead to three at 2:49 but back-to-back lay-ups by seniors Calvin Wise (Bel Air, Md./Calvert Hall) and Alex Irmer (Alexandria, Va./Wakefield) gave the Seahawks a 30-23 halftime lead.
The leaders at intermission were Griffin with 10 points and the Bearcats' sophomore guard Tammer Farid (Woodside, N.Y./Stuyvesant) with six, while Bader had 10 boards. St. Mary's made 13-of-34 attempts in the first half, while Baruch was 0-for-7 from the perimeter.
The Bearcats' finished the game out-rebounding SMCM by 24 (62-38) as Bader and junior forward George Kunkel (Glendale, N.Y./Archbishop Molloy) each hauled in 16 caroms to dominate the glass.
The Seahawks' opened up the second half of play with a 5-2 push to lead 35-25 before Baruch's 14-2 run gave the Bearcats' the lead for good as they went ahead 39-37 with 13:48 remaining in the game on a pair of free throws by Kunkel. Baruch never looked back and led by as many as 20 (67-47) at 2:25.
Farid finished the game for the Bearcats in double figures as well with 10 points and four assists.
Irmer was 5-of-6 from the floor to contribute 10 points to the Seahawk offense, while sophomore forward Mike Fitzpatrick (Bethesda, Md./Walt Whitman) added a career- and team-high nine rebounds and eight points. Wise had a career-high five blocks and six boards as the Seahawks finished with 12 team blocks.
St. Mary's will be idle for the Christmas holiday before returning to action at the St. John Fisher College Tournament on Monday-Tuesday, December 29-30 in Rochester, N.Y. SMCM will face the host in its first game at 8:00 Monday night before taking on Alfred University at 1:00 on Tuesday.
