Holy Cross (11-9, PL 4-1) wins its fourth straight game over the Raiders (7-13, PL 1-5), who dropped their fifth straight contest. The Crusaders moved into a tie for second place in the Patriot League standings with Lehigh, which dropped its first league game of the season against undefeated Bucknell.
Colgate was led by junior Simon Knight, who tallied a career-high nine points in his first career start for the Raiders. Marc Daniels added eight points and Dan Gentile chipped in with seven markers.
Keith Simmons had 11 points and seven rebounds for the Crusaders, who held Colgate to its second lowest point total of the season.
Turnovers really hurt the Raiders as they committed 23, giving the Crusaders 26 points off turnovers, while Colgate managed only one point on turnovers. Colgate did out-rebound the Crusaders, 35-28.
Holy Cross blistered the nets in the second half making 54.5 percent of its field goal attempts, after hitting only 25.9 percent in the opening 20 minutes. They were also 17-of-19 from the charity stripe, while Colgate was 10-of-18.
The first half was a series of runs by both teams. After giving up the first four points of the game, the Raiders came back with seven straight points for a 7-4 advantage behind baskets by Daniels and Knight, and a 3-pointer by Kyle Chones.
Holy Cross came right back with a seven-point run of its own to go ahead 11-10. Hamilton had five points and Simmons added a dunk. For the second time, Colgate put together another big run with 11 straight points to move in front 18-11. Trailing by the biggest deficit of the first half, the Crusaders outscored the Raiders 11-1 to open a three-point lead, 22-19.
Colgate would move back in front on Knight’s layup and two free throws by Kyle Roemer, 23-22, before Holy Cross scored the final four points of the half for a 26-23 lead at the intermission.
The Crusaders scored the first 10 points of the second half, part of a 26-7 run, that gave Holy Cross a 52-30 lead with under seven minutes left. Hamilton did most of the damage scoring 15 points, while Simmons contributed seven points. Colgate would come no closer than 18 points the rest of the way.
