Box Score

HAMILTON – Behind another great defensive effort and the hot shooting hand of five Raider players, the Colgate men's basketball team triumphed over St. Francis Pa. on Saturday afternoon, 81-64.

For the third time this season the Raiders held their opposition to under 70 points. In fact Colgate (2-2) forced St. Francis (1-5) to shoot a mere 41 percent from the floor. The Raiders on the other hand, went 32-for-55 for a 58 percentage shooting night, their best so far this season.

"It was another good team win," Colgate head coach Matt Langel said. "We obviously shot really well, but I thought we executed well to get good shots. 20 assists is a great number to see and Austin was terrific getting eight of them. I was most proud of our defensive effort early in the second half. We got some quality stops that led to good scoring opportunities."

After a back-and-forth first half the Raiders headed into the locker room up six, at 34-28. In the second 20 minutes, however, it was the Raiders who took over the game, outshooting the Red Flash 47-36 to move to .500 on the season, at 2-2. 

Colgate had no trouble on the offensive end as it saw five different players in double figures. Murphy Burnatowski led the way with a season-high 24 points, 13 of those points coming in the first half. Austin Tillotson nearly matched his career-high nine assists by handing out eight dimes. He also added 13 points to the Raiders' total. Damon Sherman-Newsome went 2-for-3 from behind the arc for 12 points while Pat Moore recorded 11 points. Ethan Jacobs rounded out the Raider scorers with 10 points.

St. Francis Pa. (1-5) was led by Ben Millaud-Meunir, who went four-of seven from downtown, for his team-high 17 points. Stephon Mosley added 12 points and was 2-for-2 from the 3-point line while Dominique Major and Malik Harmon earned 11 and 10 points, respectively.

The Red Flash started the game on a 4-0 run but a shot from long range by Burnatowski pulled the Raiders to within one, at 4-3.

Burnatowski continued his impressive day scoring four of the next six Raider points to tie the game at 9-9.

St. Francis regained the lead but a trey from Tillotson knotting the score yet again with eight minutes to play in the half.

Colgate then went on a 7-0 run over a three-minute span to pull ahead of the Red Flash by five, at 28-23 with less than two minutes to go in the first half.

Despite five points from St. Francis in the closing minutes, two makes from downtown by Burnatowski sent the Raiders into halftime with the six-point advantage, at 34-28

After trading baskets in the opening minutes of the second half, the Raiders rallied to go on a 12-0 run, led by back-to-back treys from Burnatowski and Moore to created a 19-point margin between the teams.

Nine-straight points from Millaud-Meunier pulled the Red Flash to within seven, at 62-55 with 5:33 to play but another make from long range by Moore extended the Raider advantage back up to 10.

In the final minutes of play, Clayton Graham added the insurance basket with a huge dunk to ultimately secure the Raiders' victory.

Colgate had a season-best defensive effort and kept St. Francis to only 64 points, the fewest points allowed by the Raiders since they defeated Navy 59-46 on Cotterell Court back on Feb. 24, 2013.

The Raiders also earned a season-best 20 assists and seven steals in the game, while pulling down 31 rebounds. They scored 17 points off turnovers and posted 32 points in the paint.

Colgate is back in action Tuesday when it heads to New Orleans for a matchup with Tulane at 7 p.m. C.T.