ITHACA, NY– In a battle on the Ben Light Gymnasium hardwood, the Hamilton Continentals took down the Ithaca College men’s basketball team in a thriller with the final score being 73-70. Ithaca’s record drops to 5-3 while Hamilton improves to 8-1.
The tight final score is a great indicator of how this one went down: a nailbiter from start to finish. Hamilton threw the first punch as they grabbed the early lead with Hank Morgan and Teja Singh finding twine inside to give the Continentals an early 8-2 advantage. Ithaca’s Evan Cabral wasn’t having any of it however as he knocked down a couple of early shots and Ithaca pulled to within a couple.
Later in the half, Aidan Holmes got fouled while making his jump shot and finished off the and-1 by making his free throw to put the Bombers up one. However, this is when the Hamilton offense took off as they started hitting anything and Ithaca never saw a lead for the remainder of the first half. The score was 39-32 Hamilton heading into the locker room.
Hamilton continued their offensive momentum right of the gate in the second half. Hank Morgan continued his impressive night, stretching the Hamilton lead to 10 with the score being 46-36. Logan Wendell and Chris Leystah punched back for Ithaca making a few jump shots and layups of their own tying the game at 48 just minutes later.
From that point forward, Hamilton separated themselves from the Bombers and Ithaca showed tremendous grit especially when Evan Cabral made a tough layup through a foul to give the Bombers a sliver of hope, but the comeback effort fell short with the final score resulting in a 73-70 victory for the Continentals.
Logan Wendell and Evan Cabral had 16 points apiece while Morgan was a force all night with 26 for Hamilton.
Ithaca’s next game won’t be until 2025 when they take on Carnegie Mellon at Ben Light Gymnasium on Saturday, January 4th.
