Score: University of Rochester 84, Elmira College 73
Records: Elmira (1-4), Rochester (5-0)
Location: Louis Alexander Palestra -- Rochester, N.Y.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- The Elmira College men's basketball team opened the Holiday Inn Downtown Rochester Tournament with an 84-73 loss to the host Yellowjackets of the University of Rochester on Saturday evening at the Louis Alexander Palestra.

It was a tale of two halves for the Purple and Gold, who looked to upset an undefeated Yellowjackets team that is receiving votes in the latest edition of the D3hoops.com rankings. With their patented up-tempo offense and a strong shooting performance from 3-point range, the Soaring Eagles flew out of the starting gates with the game's first 10 points. Henry Cuffee '19 was good from 3-point range on the team's first possession, and after an offensive foul committed by Rochester on the other end of the floor, Justin Porrett '19 sunk a trey of his own. Kyle McCreery '20 and Porrett each netted a bucket to finish EC's game-opening rally that had the Soaring Eagles ahead 10-0.

Up 11-7, Elmira scored its next nine points on a Porrett 3-pointer and two from Jesse Adelson '20. McCreery expanded the early lead to 14 points, 25-11, with five consecutive points, two of which came from the foul line and three from distance for his first trey of the evening. Cuffee buried two more treys in the first half on back-to-back Elmira possessions, and first-year forward Matt Amoddio '22 flashed his stroke with another to put the Soaring Eagles up 34-23 with 6:15 remaining before halftime. Elmira entered the break with a five-point advantage, 45-40, thanks to a field-goal percentage of 53.6 (15-of-28) and a 3-point percentage of 50.0 (9-of-18). 

Rochester's defense, however, clamped down in the second half. The U of R limited Elmira to a mere 22.9 field-goal percentage (8-of-35) in the final 20 minutes of action, including an 18.8 percentage (3-of-16) from 3-point range. The Yellowjackets did the bulk of their damage from down low by scoring 24 points in the paint, and they used their advantage on the glass to better EC in second-chance points, 13-to-7.

Following a second trey from McCreery a little over two minutes into the second half, Rochester was able to draw the game even for the first time at 49-all. The two sides went back-and-forth before Jeremy Every '20 leveled the game at 58-58 with a pair of foul shots. The Yellowjackets took the lead for good 36 seconds later when Patrick Benka converted one of his two free throw attempts.

Leading 71-67, the hosts put the game away with eight unanswered points, six of which were recorded by senior guard Alexander Gamble. Gamble sunk a 3-point shot and was successful on an and-one, the latter of which padded Rochester's lead to 12 points, 79-67, with four minutes to play.

News and Notes

• Elmira fell to 1-4 overall with the loss to Rochester, which improved to 5-0.
• EC made double-digit 3-pointers for the third time this season.
• The Soaring Eagles made 15 free throws, just three shy of the team's season high.
• The Elmira defense limited Rochester to just five 3-pointers, tied for the fewest allowed by the Soaring Eagles this season.
• With a team-high 16 points, Porrett has scored in double figures in all five games thus far in 2018-19.
• Backus and Every were second on the team with 11 points, respectively.
• McCreery picked up a single-game season-high 10 points in his first start of the year.

Up Next
Elmira returns to the court for the consolation game of the Holiday Inn Rochester Downtown Tournament on Sunday, November 25. The Soaring Eagles will face either Montclair State University of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at 1:00 p.m.