After winning their first pair on the season, the St. Thomas Aquinas College men's basketball team (2-1) came up short against the hosts in the Dominican College Tournament, 71-54, at Hennessy Center in Orangeburg, NY. Justin Brown led the Spartans with 19 points and Mike Woods added 18. Game three of STAC's five-game sojurn is in Pennsylvania at East Stroudsburg Stroudsburg University on Tuesday in a 7 pm start.
The Spartans went 1-1 for the tournament after Friday night's 62-41 decision over Nyack, while Dominican (4-0) captured the tourney title with a weekend sweep, including a first-round 81-80 overtime thriller against Molloy College. Molloy dropped Nyack, 71-67 in the evening's earlier contest.
St. Thomas Aquinas led throughout much of the offensively-challenged first half, but the hosts rode a late 11-2 run to turn a tie game into a 31-22 halftime edge. The Chargers proceeded to post the first seven points out of the locker room - in all, an 18-2 run in a span of just over six minutes - and their 16-point lead was never challenged. STAC showed some life in closing to within 10 on two occasions, but the large deficit and inconsistent shooting proved too much to overcome as Dominican pulled away late.
Brown and Woods combined to provide all but 17 points of STAC's offense while Nick Lopez grabbed 11 caroms, but were not enough to offset Dominican's Leon Porter (game-high 23 points), Cory Quimby (20, 15 rebounds), DaVonne Dunlop (10), and Khaleev Ginyard (10). STAC shot just 33% from the field (20-61) as opposed to the Chargers' 39% (23-59), while Dominican enjoyed a 45-37 rebounding advantage.
Continuing this difficult stretch, after Tuesday's game St. Thomas Aquinas proceeds to face legendary Coach Herb Magee's Philadelphia University squad on Sunday, November 27; and take the turnpike south to meet Wilmington University in Delaware on Wednesday, November 30. They return to Sparkill and the Aquinas Hall Edge, hosting Queens College in their East Coast Conference opener on Wednesday, December 7. Tip-off time for that game is set for 7:30 pm after the women's contest, and both games will be carried live on New Media Television Sports.