Final Statistics

Riverdale, N.Y. – The College of Mount Saint Vincent Men's Basketball team dropped a hard fought 90-82 decision to league rival Purchase on Thursday night. Rookie guard Sean Caputo (Staten Island, N.Y.)

Sean Caputo netted a career-best 19 points against Purchase.

drained five triples and led four Dolphins in double-figures with his career-high 19 points.

 

The Dolphins would trail the entire first half on Thursday, but never let Purchase move in front more then nine points. After falling behind 25-16 with 9:13 left in the period, Mount Saint Vincent ran off 14 of the next 19 points to knot the score at 30-30 with just over four minutes left before the break.

 

Purchase would respond to the Mount Saint Vincent run with eight straight points to move in front 38-30 at the 1:13 mark of the first. Six of the eight tallies came from the free-throw line in the run.

 

The Dolphins again battled back from the eight point deficit and scored the final seven points of the stanza. A triple from Filipp Bochkov (Moscow, Russia), a bucket from Pat Panetta (Ridgefield Park, N.J.) and two free-throws from Eric Van Tine (Hawthorne, N.J.) got the Mount to within 38-37 after the opening 20 minutes.

 

Mount Saint Vincent shot just under 45-percent from the floor in the half and knocked in three more treys then the Panthers. Purchase shot just under 41-percent in the period, but outscored the Dolphins 11-3 at the charity stripe to hold the lead at the break.

 

The Mount took its first lead of the night in the opening possession of the second half when George Naldjieff (Miami, Fla.) converted a jumper in the opening half minute. After the two teams swapped the lead six times over the first three minutes, the Dolphins opened their largest lead of the night at 52-48 after a Panetta lay-in with 14:18 to play in regulation.

 

From that point, Purchase ran off 11 straight points to take the lead for good in the tilt. A Billups fast break bucket with just over 10 minutes left to play pushed the Panther lead to seven.

 

After falling behind by as many as 12 points, Mount Saint Vincent used one final run to get to within four points with 2:59 left in the contest. Purchase would not let its lead slip below that four point advantage the rest of the evening and would knock in eight from the line over the final 2:23 to secure the eight point win.

 

Purchase finished the game shooting 51.7-percent, which included a blistering 64.3-percent effort in the second half. Billups led all scorers with 31 points after going 9-for-14 from the field and 13-for-16 from the free-throw line. Charles Thompson posted 23 points for the Panthers on the night.

 

Caputo finished the night 5-for-11 from the field and 5-for-10 from long range, as the Dolphins finished shooting 53.9-percent on the night. He made five of the six threes the Dolphins posted in the contest.

 

Carson Miller (New Oxford, Pa.) finished with 18 points on the block Thursday and also grabbed six rebounds and swatted three blocks. Cody Gauvard (Rockaway Park, N.Y.) and Panetta finished with 15 and 10 points respectively. Gauvard finished with the game's only double-double after posting a game-high 10 rebounds.

 

For the game the Dolphins turned the ball over 23 times which led to 24 Purchase points. The Dolphins were also outscored 46-36 in the paint and 10-8 on the fast break.

 

The loss drops Mount Saint Vincent to 8-13 overall on the season and to 5-12 in the Skyline Conference. The Dolphins will be back in action again on Friday night when they host St. Joseph's-Brooklyn in a non-league contest. Tip-off at Hayes Gymnasium is set for 7:00 p.m.