Staten Island, N.Y. - On Saturday, January 19, the men's basketball team took on the Dolphins of the College of Staten Island in a City University of New York Conference contest. The Purple and Gold slipped into a 20 point deficit by halftime and were unable to climb out of the hole, dropping the game by a score of 74-58. With the loss, the Hawks slip to 7-10, 4-4 CUNYAC while the Dolphins advance to 11-3, 7-1 CUNYAC.
Lester Anim led the way for Hunter with a 13 point performance to go along with his nine rebounds. Brian Kruger chipped in with eight points and four boards while Peter Koutsolokas, Taulant Ibraj and Jerrell Antley each added six points apiece. Eric Kippins had an excellent defensive game and made his presence felt with three blocked shots and accounted for one of Hunter's 10 steals. The Hawks dominated the board, out-rebounding the hosts by a 50-42 margin split between 17 offensive and 33 defensive grabbed misses.
For the Dolphins, Bloochy Magloire led three of his teammates in double digit scoring with 18 points. Javon Cox posted a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds while Jon Chadwick-Myers and Dylan Bulger added 12 and 11 points respectively while combining for 10 rebounds.
In the opening act, the Hawks found themselves down from the get-go, watching a two point deficit grow into a 12 point disadvantage within the first 11 minutes of the game. Kruger nailed a jumper to shift the momentum in his team's favor at the 9:27 mark. A steal and fast break layup by Lorenzo Brown, who was fouled but converted his attempt from the charity stripe made it a seven point game. A triple from Kruger and then a Ben Mayell layup put a cap on the 10-0 run that spanned nearly two minutes to give pull Hunter within two.
However, the Hawks would go cold while the Dolphins went on a hot streak to close out the half. The hosts quickly responded by going on a 21-3 run, forcing Hunter into a 20 point deficit at halftime.
In the second, despite outscoring their opponents 37-33, Hunter was unable to pull within striking distance to pose a comeback. They found themselves down by as much as 24 at one point and would get no closer than 15 points on two occasions. They shot just 2-9 from behind the arc and were 13-36 from the floor, meanwhile the Dolphins significantly improved from the first half by taking a more economical approach from the field, going 10-24 to help serve the Hawks their 10th loss of the year by way of a 74-58 score.
The men's basketball team returns to action on Wednesday, January 23 when they travel downtown for a CUNYAC showdown between rivals Baruch College at 7:30 pm. You can follow along with the game through Live Stats which can be found here.
