Box Score

NEWBURGH, N.Y. – The Mount Saint Mary College men's basketball team reached triple digits for the second consecutive game, this time in a 100-75 defeat of Purchase College.  The Knights won their sixth straight game to improve to 11-4 overall (6-2 Skyline), while the Panthers fell below .500 at 7-8 overall (5-3 Skyline).

The Mount closed the opening half on a 13-4 run and a three-pointer from junior Ryan Straub (Massapequa, N.Y.) inside the final minute sent the Knights to the locker room with a 43-32 advantage.  Sophomore Chris Pisciotta (New Hyde Park, N.Y.) played a strong opening 20 minutes, finishing the half with a game-high 10 points.  Sophomore Joe Henain (Benesuef, Egypt) also played well in the first, racking up eight points and seven boards.

The Knights wouldn't lead by less than 11 for the rest of the contest, but really put the game out of reach because of the three-point shooting of junior Lenny Ragaglia (Staten Island, N.Y.).  Ragaglia drained three triples inside a span of three minutes to send the Mount to an 80-57 advantage with 8:01 to play.

Purchase would get back to within 20, but an alley-oop dunk from senior Carlos Valdez (Carolina, Puerto Rico) would swipe all of the momentum back.  As the Panthers struggled to get back on defense, sophomore Anthony Cipriano (Staten Island, N.Y.) pushed the pace to create a two-on-one.  Cipriano lobbed a perfect feed to Valdez who elevated, caught the pass, and jammed it home.

Mount Saint Mary stretched the lead even further with a late 10-0 run that featured back-to-back triples from sophomore Joe Stabach (Staten Island, N.Y.) and Pisciotta.  Then, leading 98-74 inside the final minute, sophomore Steve Phillips (New Hyde Park, N.Y.) hit a pretty baseline jumper to push the Mount to 100.  It was the first time the Knights have reached 100 points in back-to-back games since 2005-06.  During January of 2006, Mount Saint Mary broke the century mark in three straight games with point totals of 102, 115, and 124.

Pisciotta led the Knights with a season-high 20 points on 4-of-6 from three and 6-of-8 at the line.  Valdez hit on all nine field goal attempts to finish with 9 points and seven rebounds.  Ragaglia wound up with five three-pointers and 17 points, while senior Kevin Milella (Floral Park, N.Y.) reached double figures for the fourth straight game with 11.  Straub finished with 10 points for the second straight game, once again matching his career high.

Purchase junior John Pressley (New York, N.Y.) led the Panthers with 27 points on 10-of-21 from the field.  Senior B.J. Warrington (Bronx, N.Y.) also reached double figures with 11 points.

The Mount shot 52.8-percent from the field and connected on 13-of-27 (48.1-percent) from three.  Purchase shot 45.2-percent for the contest, but was a woeful 11-of-27 (40.7-percent) from the free throw line.

With a chance to extend their winning streak to seven games, the Knights will host NYU-Poly on Thursday evening.  Game time is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. in the Kaplan Center.