The Saint Vincent men's basketball faced Presidents' Athletic Conference foe, Geneva College. Despite a run midway through the second half, the Bearcats fell by final of 85-73. Saint Vincent falls to 12-12 overall and 7-8 in the PAC while Geneva improves to 11-13 on the year and 7-8 in the conference.Â
Coming out of halftime, Geneva led 36-32 but a free throw from
Walter Bonds cut the deficit to three. After the score was made 41-37, the Golden Tornadoes went on a 16-1 run to extend their lead to 19 (57-38) with 11:41 on the clock. Saint Vincent responded with a 19-6 run with nine points from
Josh Duda to cut the score to 63-57 at the 4:58 mark. After slowly growing its lead back to nine (75-66), Geneva closed out the final 1:15 by going 9-10 from the free throw line to win by the 12-point margin.
Back in the first half, it was SVC the jumped out to an early lead. The Bearcats opened the game with an 18-5 run as
Shemar Bennett scored six of the 18. The Golden Tornadoes answered by scoring 14 of the next 15 points to even the score at 19 all with 8:07 to go in the opening half. Both sides went back and forth but Geneva closed out the first half by scoring the final six points to lead 36-32 going into the locker room.
David Stephen led all Bearcats with 14 points while grabbing 11 rebounds for his first double-double of the season and his second of his SVC career. Bennett, Duda and
Drew Normandin each scored 13 points on the evening. On the night, Saint Vincent shot 43.9-percent from the field and went 5-21 from three-point range.
On the other side, Geneva's Lyle Tipton scored a game-high 33 points with four additional Golden Tornadoes scoring in double digits. Geneva went 28-54 (51.9%) from the field and made 88.5-percent (23-26) of its free throws.
Saint Vincent will conclude the regular season on the road against Chatham University on Saturday, Feb. 22. Start time is set for 8 p.m. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Â