HAMILTON, N.Y. (2/11/09) – Sophomore Mike Venezia (Westfield, NJ) equaled his career-high with 20 points to lead Colgate to a 71-54 Patriot League win over Lafayette Wednesday night at Cotterell Court.

Colgate wins its season-high third straight game improving to 9-14 overall and 5-5 in the league, while Lafayette drops to 6-18 overall and 2-8 in the league with its seventh straight loss.

The Raiders used a balanced scoring attack with three other players in double figures including Yaw Gyawu (Lilburn, GA) with 16, Ben Jonson 13 (Dallas, TX) and Anthony Hill (Plano, TX) 10.  The Leopards were led by Ryan Willen with 16 and Jim Mower with 13.

After Lafayette scored the opening basket of the game, Colgate ripped off 19 straight points and never looked back.  Venezia led the way with 10 points in the run, while Jonson added four.

The Raiders led by as many as 20 points in the opening 20 minutes before settling for a 36-19 halftime advantage.  In the second half, Colgate increased its lead to 24 points on two occasions as the Leopards never came closer than 14 points in the closing minute.

Colgate's victory came with a price when leading rebounder Alex Woodhouse (Alexandria, VA) went down with a knee injury at the 17:27 mark of the first half.  Woodhouse is the second leading rebounder in the league and top shot blocker.

Colgate edged the Leopards on the boards 33-32 led by freshman Nick Pascale (Dewitt, NY) with six caroms.  Marek Koltun had nine for Lafayette.

Colgate shot 59 percent from the field making 27-of-46 shots, while holding Lafayette to 34 percent. 

The Raiders are back in action on Saturday when they travel to American University for a 1 p.m. game to be televised on ESPNU.

(Boxscore)