HAMBURG, N.Y. – The Hilbert College men's basketball team returned to the winning side of the ledger after they earned a 92-86 Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference victory over D'Youville College tonight.
With the win, Hilbert (5-5, 2-3) earned a point in the WNY Buffalo Cup standings and evened their overall record back to 500. D'Youville dropped to 3-6 and moved to 2-2 in league standings.
Jalen Smith found his shooting touch again knocking down 50% of shots, both inside the arc and behind the line, to total 28 points.
Joseph Braniecki and
Nicholas Parucki, the sophomore tandem in the lane, collected 12 and 14 points, respectively while
Derrek Carman and Braniecki posted team-high eight rebounds.
Masia Phillips came off the bench and gave Hilbert a big lift both on defense and offense. He finished with 11 points, three assists and four steals in 24 minutes.
Hunter Martineau again served as the team's quarterback finding seven assists for the winners.
Hilbert had to dig themselves out of an 8-point hole after D'Youville hit three consecutive 3-point shots in three trips down the floor at the start of the game. Slowly they pulled back and took the first lead at 11:40 off a
David Arlaud lay-up that turned into a three point play (19-17) after he sank his foul shot.
From that point forward, Hilbert was on automatic pilot and continued to stretch their lead to 10-points (36-26) when
Jalen Smith knocked down a long shot. Smith struck again from down town at 2:29 for another 10-point cushion, but D'Youville fought back.
The Spartans went onto close the half with a 12-3 run and trailed 46-45 by intermission.
D'Youville opened the second half with a three-ball and took their first lead of the second session. They maintained their advantage through the first seven minutes until Phillips converted his own old-fashioned three-point play at 12:39 for a 63-63 score.
From that point forward, Hilbert kept their composure, surrendered the lead only twice and played through three tie-scores to pull out the six-point victory.
Hilbert come through in the clutch, when they needed to the most. The team struggled the entire game at the foul line and thanks to Phillips and Braniecki who combined went 4-4 in the last 43-seconds of the game, helped secure the win with a 10-point cushion.
The Hawks went 25-41 at the charity stripe while D'Youville converted 13 of their 16 attempts.
Final exams begin tomorrow for the Hawks but they return to action this Saturday when they travel to Franciscan for a 4pm tip against the 0-10, 0-4 Barons.
