New York, NY – The men's basketball team dropped an 86-80 CUNYAC contest to Lehman College earlier this evening. After leading by six at the half, the Hawks were unable to hang on to the lead and ultimately suffered the loss despite having five players achieve double digit scoring. The defeat drops them to 3-21, 3-12 in conference play.
 
Alex Mattina emerged for 20 points and accounted for half of the team's three pointers made. Robert Borusiewicz shot an efficient 7-9 from the field for 17 points and eight boards while Brian Kruger did his part with 13. Both Gerard Carty and Matt Franks registered double figures with 10 and 11 points respectively while combining for 13 rebounds.
 
The Hawks quickly fell behind by 10 in the opening five minutes of the game, but surged right back on the efforts Bryan Silvera, Kruger and Franks to pull even and then take their first lead after Mattina made good on a layup at the 12:19 mark. Hunter then used a 6-1 run to establish a five point upper hand which wound up being short lived as Lehman tied the game at 29 apiece. Over the final 1:42, Borusiewicz, Carty and Mattina each connected on both of their free throw attempts while Mattina also knocked down a trey to give the Purple and Gold a 43-37 advantage heading into halftime.
 
A 13-7 Hunter run kicked off the second which was bookmarked by the efforts of Mattina; a triple to spark it and a free throw to cap it. However, Lehman did not go away quietly and fired back with a 16-3 which resulted in regaining the lead. After a Carty deuce, Head Coach John Pelin and his squad found themselves up by four with just under six minutes to play. Nine straight Lightning points gave them a five point lead and was responsible for closing out the game on an 18-8 run which proved enough to serve the Hawks the loss.
 
Hunter will close out the regular season next week on Tuesday, February 16 when they visit the Cardinals of York College in the final CUNYAC showdown. Tipoff is slated for an 8pm start.