ELMIRA, N.Y. -- The Elmira College men's basketball team prepares for an Empire 8 Conference bout against Ithaca College on Tuesday, January 7th. The game at the Bombers' Ben Light Gymnasium is scheduled to begin at 8:00 p.m.

LAST TIME OUT: EC dropped an E8 tilt against Houghton College, 70-64, on Saturday evening. Hayden Harkins '18 got the Soaring Eagles off to a good start, as he opened the scoring with a trey a 1:04 into the matchup. Henry Cuffee '19 also made an impact on the game early with four consecutive points to give Elmira a 9-4 advantage at the 15:47 mark of the opening half. Just 1:40 later, an Alex Ischiropoulos '20 3-pointer gave EC its largest cushion of the game, 14-6. Facing the early deficit, the Highlanders fought back and took a 25-23 lead with 3:50 left in the stanza. Elmira would not stay down for long, as Cuffee added three points to his team-high 21 with an and-one to put EC back up, 26-25, two possessions later. The Soaring Eagles held on to the advantage for the rest of the half, taking a 29-28 lead into halftime. Unfortunately for EC, Houghton started to pull away in the second half, as they built a game-high-tying nine-point cushion with just 46 seconds remaining. A valiant effort from Justin Porrett '19 cut the margin to just four points, 65-61, after he scored five-straight points in a five-second span. The run came up just short, as the Highlanders went 5-for-6 from the foul line in the final 27 seconds of the game to seal the victory.

CUFFEE TURNING A CORNER: In the past week, Cuffee has been EC's most dominant player, as he paced the team with 16.5 points and 6.0 boards per game in the four outings. Cuffee has been very efficient in this four-game stretch, as he has shot a team-high 58.1 percent (25-for-43) from the floor. This includes his 21-point outing against the Highlanders on Saturday, his second-highest scoring total of his career, in which he shot 9-for-11 (81.8-percent) from the field. The second-year Soaring Eagle has also ramped up his defensive performance, as he recorded five of his team-leading 14 blocks on the season in this span.

SCOUTING ITHACA: The Bombers enter Tuesday's game with a 6-15 overall record and a 2-10 standing in conference after losing six straight games. Ithaca's slide started with a 66-63 setback at the hands of the Soaring Eagles on January 21st. The Bombers' biggest detriment is their difficulty stopping opposing offenses, as they allow a conference-high 89.0 points per game, 11.8 points more than the next-closest team. Ithaca has also struggled to grab rebounds, as is sits second-lowest in the E8 with 35.7 boards per game. On the bright side, junior guard Marc Chasin has been one of the top players in the Empire 8, as he sits in the top-10 in six statistical categories in the conference. Chasin paces Ithaca in points (17.8), 3-pointers (2.1), assists per game (3.1) and free throw percentage (75.9), marks that rank fifth, sixth, eighth and 10th in the league, respectively. Defensively, the Miami, Florida, product ranks ninth in the E8 with 1.3 steals and 10th with 6.0 boards per game.

SERIES HISTORY: Elmira and Ithaca will meet for the 65th time tomorrow, with the Bombers claiming a 41-23 advantage in the all-time series. With the 66-63 victory from earlier this season, the Soaring Eagles ended Ithaca's three-game win streak between the two programs. EC's most recent triumph on the Bombers' home court was on January 2, 2015, by a final score of 75-60.

UP NEXT: Elmira will continue its two-game road trip on Thursday, February 9th, when it travels to Rochester, New York, to face Nazareth College. The Soaring Eagles and the Golden Flyers are scheduled to take flight at 8:00 p.m. at Naz's Kidera Gymnasium.