Jan. 25, 2012
Box Score
HAMILTON, N.Y. - - A complete team effort, with four players in double figures, gave Lafayette an 82-76 victory over Colgate on Wednesday night at Cotterell Court. Ryan Willen's 18 points paced the Leopards who shot 56 percent from the field as a team.
With the victory, head coach Fran O'Hanlon became the Patriot League's all-time winningest coach with 235 career wins. O'Hanlon passed former Bucknell head man Pat Flannery and now holds the Patriot League record for wins in addition to owning the overall (489) and league (218) games coached marks. The Leopards are 3-0 in road Patriot League games in 2011-12.
Reigning Patriot League Rookie of the Week Dan Trist tied his career-high with 13 points and Joey Ptasinski also scored 13 in a career-high effort. Point guard Tony Johnson added 10 to go along with a season-high seven assists.
Colgate (6-14, 1-5) opened up a 15-6 advantage six minutes into the game after hitting seven of its first 10 shots. Lafayette then responded with a 9-2 run with three straight treys on consecutive possessions to pull within two at the 12:05 mark after Johnson's triple.
Lafayette (9-12, 4-2) led 32-30 with 5:15 to play in the first half following Ptasinski's jumper but the Raiders put together a 12-2 spurt to take its largest lead of the first half? (42-34). During the run, Sterling Melville scored nine of his 13 first-half points to lead the home side. With 1:28 showing, Lafayette answered with a pair of threes from Ptasinski and Johnson at the buzzer to cut the deficit to 42-40 at the break.
The Leopards' scored the first six points of the second half on layups from Jim Mower, Johnson and Trist to take a 46-42 lead 2:10 into the second session. Lafayette never trailed from that point on with the only tie coming at 57 apiece at the 9:45 mark.
Lafayette scored 12 of the next 16 points and led 69-61 with 4:08 to play. Levi Giese started the run with a short turnaround hook shot, followed by a Willen triple off a baseline inbounds play to extend the lead to five with 6:01 showing. A Nick Pascale layup pulled Colgate within three but Willen found Trist in traffic and the freshman converted a three-point play with a reverse lay-in. Melville, who finished with a game-high 19 points, made a basket for the Raiders, but Rob Delaney sank four free throws on two one-and-one situations to end the stretch.
Another Melville layup made it 69-63 but Johnson penetrated the lane and kicked to a wide-open Ptasinski three that gave Lafayette its largest lead of the night at 72-63 with 3:11 on the clock. Brandon James hit back-to-back threes surrounding a Willen bucket to pull Colgate within five at 2:03. Luke Roh's layup made it 77-73 with 50 seconds to go, but Lafayette sank 5-of-6 free throws to ice the game.
As a team, Lafayette was 18-of-22 from the charity stripe while Colgate made just 7-of-14. The Leopards' won the battle on the glass, 28 25.
Lafayette completes the first half of the Patriot League slate when it hosts American (14-7, 5-1) at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
Notes: Lafayette improved to 6-0 when outshooting its opponents this season (56% to 55.4%) and 3-0 when shooting better than 50 percent. Lafayette is now 4-2 when winning the rebounding battle.
