CORTLAND, N.Y. – Ryan Henderson scored a career-high 24 points as the St. John Fisher College men's basketball team fell victim to the SUNY Cortland on Thursday night after the Red Dragons emerged with a 70-69 win in non-conference action inside Corey Gym. With the loss, Fisher, which is receiving votes in the latest D3hoops.com national poll, fell to 2-3 while Cortland improved to 3-1 on the season.
Henderson was 10-for-13 on the night and added three rebounds while
Tyler English chipped in 13 points, seven boards and four assists.
Sammy Robinson finished with eight points and seven rebounds of his own while senior
Tyler Farrell contributed eight points overall.
The Cardinals had the hot hand early after converting seven of their first eight shots to hold an 18-12 lead with just over five minutes gone by. Undaunted, Cortland would produce 12 of the game's next 16 points to open up a slight edge, 24-22.
As the half wore down, the lead changed hands four times before the Red Dragons scored five unanswered points to hold a five-point advantage with under a minute to play before halftime. Trailing by two possessions, Fisher brought the ball down up as English kicked it out to Henderson who knocked down a 3-pointer from the wing to pull the Cardinals to within one heading into the break, 37-36.
The back-and-forth play carried over into the second half with both teams jockeying for the lead. After exchanging the advantage nine times over the first seven minutes of the second half, Fisher seemed to settle into a groove as the Cardinals opened up a six-point margin on a layup from English to make it 59-53, but Cortland countered with an 11-0 run including three field goals from behind the arc to turn a deficit into a five-point lead.
From there, Fisher found its footing as Henderson knocked down back-to-back threes and scored eight straight points to tie the contest at 67 with 1:32 left to play. After forcing Cortland into a contested three, Fisher called timeout with under a minute remaining to draw up a play. The Cardinals got into their set, but were unable to knock down the go-ahead basket as Cortland pushed the ball before connecting on another 3-pointer to make it a 70-67 game.
Trailing by three points with 26 seconds still showing, Fisher worked the ball around until Henderson beat his man on a back cut and threw down a dunk to bring it to 70-69. The Cardinals would foul on the inbounds to conserve time and Cortland missed the front end of the 1-and-1 with English coming away with the rebound. With six seconds left, the senior sprinted across the timeline and found space for an open jumper, but it was not to be as the ball rimmed out with Cortland surviving.
The Cardinals shot the ball well from the floor making 27-of-55 (.491), however, it was the Red Dragons' ability to hit from distance that proved to be the difference as Cortland had 14 3-pointers in the contest.
Fisher will take the court for its next bout at 6 p.m. on Thursday when it takes on the nationally-ranked University of Rochester Yellowjackets at RIT in the Mark's Pizzeria Crosstown Shootout.
