The Yeshiva University men’s basketball team suffered a 69-60 loss to the Farmingdale State Rams at the Max Stern Athletic Center on Monday evening. The defeat dropped the Maccabees to 4-2 in Skyline play and 8-6 overall. The Rams remain undefeated in conference contests at 8-0, while advancing to 12-5 overall.
Yeshiva was led by senior forward Michael Berg who scored a team-high 16 points, grabbed six boards, and blocked a game-high three shots. Freshman forward Bar Alluf added 10 points, while grabbing four rebounds.
The first 10:00 of the contest was a back-and-forth affair. With Farmingdale State up 11-10, sophomore forward Tal Gweta found classmate Michael Hayon, who laid the ball up and in to give Yeshiva its sixth lead of the game, 12-11. The Rams shifted momentum into its favor by scoring nine unanswered points to take a commanding 20-12 lead with 7:47 remaining in the opening half.
YU regained control by going on an 8-2 run, capped off by a three-point field goal from Alluf to pull the home team to within two. Later in the half, Alluf converted another shot from downtown to tie the contest at 28. With Yeshiva down 34-32, Berg successfully executed a layup to tie it up with just over a minute remaining. The game went into intermission tied at 34.
In the second stanza, the Rams scored the first six points to take control of the contest. The home team would slowly crawl back into the game, as senior forward Eli Mamann narrowed the Rams’ lead to 48-47 with 11:45 remaining in regulation time. On the next defensive possession, sophomore guard Judah Cohen forced a steal and drained a three-pointer to put Yeshiva up by two, 50-48, with 11:09 left, much to the delight of the raucous crowd. After Farmingdale State went on a run to go up 53-50, Mamann drained another shot from beyond the arc to tie the game at 53.
After the Rams pulled ahead 57-53, the Maccabees scored three straight points, capped off by a free throw from senior forward Dean Pienica, to narrow the home team’s deficit to 57-56, with 6:14 left to play. From that point on, Farmingdale took complete control by scoring 12 of the game’s last 16 points to earn the key Skyline Conference victory.
For the evening, Mamann scored nine points, via three field goals from beyond the arc. Cohen added eight points, while freshman guard Simcha Halpert produced seven. Senior guard Jordan Hod scored six points with three assists, while Gweta dished out just as many dimes.
Yeshiva will return to the Max Stern Athletic Center on Wednesday, for another Skyline Conference game against Sarah Lawrence College, beginning at 8:00 p.m.
By YUMACS.COM
