Box Score

HAMDEN, Conn. – Colgate fell behind by double digits in the early going and never bounced back in losing 67-56 to Quinnipiac here Wednesday night.

A weary Raiders bunch lost its third straight and dropped four of six on a series of road games dating to the middle of last month. Colgate placed three in double figures, led by Murphy Burnatowski and Mitch Rolls with 12 apiece. Luke Roh added 10 points.

Quinnipiac scored the game's first five points en route to an 18-5 advantage by the 11:41 mark of the first half. Two fouls on Colgate center John Brandenburg in the first five minutes didn't help, as the home side took advantage of his absence to find its way to the extra rebound and extra loose ball.

“Anytime you're on the road against a team that competes for its league championship and you get off to a really flat start, it's going to be hard,” Raiders head coach Matt Langel said. “We didn't quit, but you've got to be almost mistake-free and have everything go your way.

“They are too tough of a group to allow that to happen. Obviously, the start of the game affected us in a negative way.”

Spark Before the Break
Colgate found a spark around the midway point of the opening half. Rolls hit a jumper and Burnatowski connected on one of his three 3-pointers to make it 21-10. Then Damon Sherman-Newsome and Brandon James scored in front of Matt McMullen's only hoop and it was down to 21-16 with 6:42 left.

The teams then traded mini-runs over the last six minutes to leave the halftime margin at 31-26. Roh had six of his 10 points during this stretch with a mixture of inside and outside success.

“Quinnipiac guarded him a little bit differently than other teams have,” Langel said of his sophomore guard. “He got to the rim late in the first half a couple of times, and then they did a nice job on him in the second half.

“But 12 shots is a lot for him.”

Roh finished 4 of 12 from the field.

More of the Same
The second half was a carbon-copy, with the Bobcats scoring seven of the first nine points. Quinnipiac (3-4) led by as many as 17 points at 50-33, thanks in part to a Colgate scoring drought of six minutes and 11 seconds that contributed to 10 straight Bobcat points.

“They came out really ready to go and got back to what they do, which is rebound on the offensive end,” Langel said. “They had four or five in first five minutes of the game, and then had another four or five in the first four minutes of the second half.”

Quinnipiac finished with a 46-34 rebounding edge, which included 18 on the offensive glass.

Colgate shot 37 percent from the field, making 20 of 54. The Raiders sank just 6 of 19 from long distance. Quinnipiac shot 34.5 percent from the field (19-of-55), but made up for that field-goal deficit by making 25 of 38 free-throw attempts to Colgate's 10 of 15.

Quinnipiac placed four scorers in double figures, led by Garvey Young with 15. Ike Azotam added 12, Jamee Jackson 11 and Evan Conti an even 10. Azotam and Jackson paced all rebounders with 10 apiece, while Burnatowski had a Colgate-high of eight.

“We're in exam time and this was another long trip, but that's just the schedule we have,” Langel said. “If you use those as answers, in my mind they are excuses and we're not correcting the problem.

“You only get a finite number of games to play. You should be ready to go all the time.”

The Raiders (3-6) host Albany on Saturday at 2 p.m. as part of a doubleheader with the Colgate women's team.

“It will be good to be home, not be on somebody else's court and sleep in our own beds for a change,” Langel said. “But Albany is a really good team. They are playing really well, so we'll certainly have our hands full.”