Box Score
On Monday night, February 7, the men's basketball team took on the Lightning of Lehman College in their tenth conference game of the season. The Hawks took an early lead and held it for the majority of the game, but the Lightning remained close, never letting them get out of range as the game came down to the wire. Late free throws by junior Anthony Uter with under a minute to go locked up the victory as the Hawks closed the game out 69-63. With the win, Hunter gets back over .500 as their record stands at 11-10, 6-4 CUNYAC while Lehman drops to 11-13, 5-7 CUNYAC.
The Lightning's Jonathan DeJesus scored a quick layup in the opening 18 seconds of the game to get the contest started, but the Hawks responded on a feed from Panagiotis Koutsoloukas to Uter for the easy bucket. At the 17:32 mark, Samuel Batista knocked down a three to go up 5-4 but would be held scoreless for the next five and a half minutes as Mark Courtein sunk two from behind the arc which aided a 12-0 Hunter run. The 11 point Hawk lead slowly dwindled as time ran down and eventually turned into a one point deficit with 35 seconds left, but Uter connected on a layup to close out the second half to give his team a 33-32 edge.
The opening five minutes of the second half was a see-saw, back and forth battle that saw the lead change five times with neither team getting any further than a three point cushion. A Courtien three pointer broke the tie and helped the Hawks eventually extend their lead to as much as eight points, but the Lightning fought back and closed to within three points on four different occasions. However, with a three point lead heading into the final 30 seconds, Uter knocked down three attempts from the charity stripe to wrap up the game, 69-63, giving his team their 11th win.
Uter was the game high scorer with 22 points while he and Koutsoloukas each grabbed 10 boards. Courtein shot three of four from three point land and added 17 points.
The Hawks return to action on Wednesday, February 9 when they host the Beavers of CCNY in the first of their final three games of the regular season. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 pm.
