The St. Thomas Aquinas College men's basketball team reclaimed sole possession of first place in the East Coast Conference with an 85-78 victory at Daemen College. The victory moves STAC to 17-10 overall, 14-3 in the ECC with Daemen falling to 16-5, 11-5.
St. Thomas Aquinas now moves one-half game ahead of idle Bridgeport in the ECC standings with one week to play. Also, by virtue of their season-series sweep of Daemen, the Spartans would earn the tiebreaker over Bridgeport should the teams finish tied in the standings.
Five scorers recorded double-figures for the Spartans, with Justin Reyes posting 18 points and Chaz Watler contributing 16. Daemen's Jordan Greene led all scorers with 28 points.
After seeing the score tied on five occasions in the early minutes, it was Daemen that gained the early edge as a pair of buckets from Greene spurred a 13-2 run to give the hosts a 25-16 lead. Points were hard to come by for the Spartans but the offense caught fire, with Watler spurring a furious 15-0 run over a five minute span, giving the visitors a 33-27 lead with three minutes to go in the first half.
Daemen would rebound, however, and Supreme Hannah's trey just before the halftime buzzer closed out an 11-4 run to give the Wildcats a 38-37 advantage at the break.
Though the Wildcats were able to extend that margin to 44-39 shortly after the break, it was STAC that gained the momentum from that point. James Mitchell's trey at 14:52 gave the Spartans a 48-46 lead that they would not relinquish. The Spartan lead maxed out at nine points on a pair of occasions, and though Daemen would draw back to within one point, the conference leaders would find the answer each time.
In addition to Reyes and Watler, Marcus Henderson posted 11 points while Sam Berlin and James Mitchell contributed 10 each for STAC's trademark balanced attack. Supreme Hannah recorded 17 points and eight assists for the Wildcats. The Spartans yielded just eight turnovers for the entire contest to 18 for Daemen, and STAC helped it's case from the foul line with 17-of-19 shooting (87%).
The Spartans conclude their Western New York Weekend with an ECC battle at Roberts Wesleyan College tomorrow, Saturday, February 21, in a 4:00 pm start. STAC then travels to face Mercy College on Wednesday, February 25, before closing out the regular season at Aquinas Hall against the University of the District of Columbia on Saturday, February 28. Senior Day festivities precede the 3:30 pm tipoff.