Omar Kellman's 16 points keyed a second-half rally as the St. Thomas Aquinas College men's basketball team attempted to overcome a 23-point deficit before falling short against Molloy, 63-58. Justin Brown added 13 for the Spartans. Molloy's win is its second in the last three games, and boosts their record to 7-14 overall, 4-7 in the East Coast Conference, while the Spartans lost their fourth in five, falling to 8-12, 4-7.

After jumping to a 4-2 lead on the strength of a pair of Kellman field goals, the Spartans ran ice cold against the visiting Lions' match-up zone defense. STAC went just under eight minutes without a point, during which time Molloy ran up 17 of their own to build a 15-point bulge. The Spartans responded with a 12-3 streak of their own to pull to within six, but the Lions were able to pull away to a 30-17 advantage at the break.

STAC pulled to within 32-22 early in the second half, but Molloy would hit its first eight shots from the field in the second stanza to pace a 20-8 run, having the game seemingly in hand at 52-30 with 13:15 remaining. This time it was the Lions who would run cold, being outscored 20-3 over the following seven minutes and allowing the Spartans to close to within 55-50. They would close the gap to within three points and have three opportunities to tie the contest - two of those coming from leading scorer Justin Brown in the final minute - but were unable to come up with the big hoop.

Jimmy Nolan led the way for Molloy, topping all scorers with 19 points, while John Petrucelli added 15 and Richard Zoller chipped in with 11. The Lions where strong from the field, shooting 51% on 22-43 accuracy while holding the Spartans to just 38% on 21-55. STAC decisively outrebounded the visitors by a 38-26 total, and the tough Molloy defense forced 21 turnovers while yielding just 15 of their own.

The Spartans head into the home stretch with a big road contest this Wednesday, February 8 at Dowling College, with tipoff time set for 7:00 pm. This game will be aired along with the preceding women's contest as part of the ECC's Featured Double-Header series and can be accessed at www.eccsports.org. They return to Aquinas Hall to host LIU-Post on Saturday, February 11, as the back end of double-header action, with the men's tilt starting at 3 pm.