Gators fall on the road to MCLA, 75-70

Gators fall on the road to MCLA, 75-70

North Adams, MAThe Sage Colleges' men's basketball team travelled to Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts on Thursday afternoon for a non-conference match-up with the Trailblazers. MCLA capped the 2015 half of the season off with the 75-70 victory over Sage in the Amsler Campus Center Gym. MCA improves to 3-5 overall, while Sage falls to 7-4 on the season.

MCLA held a 44-35 lead at the break as they held Sage to 38.2% shooting from the floor, while shooting 50.0% as Isshiah Coleman led the Trailblazers with 11 first half points off the bench. Sage got 11 points in the first stanza of play from senior Travis Gill (Brooklyn, NY/Xaverian), while junior Marcus Patterson (Bronx, NY/Mount Saint Michael Academy) paced the team with 10 points. The Gators made 7-of-8 free throws in the first half and tied the action four times in the first half.

By game's end, Coleman had a team-best double-double on 16 points with 11 rebounds. He did not miss a shot making all 7 of his attempts from the floor and both free throws in the contest.

Patterson tallied a season and career-best 20 points, while adding 10 rebounds in the action. Gill added 17 points with 10 rebounds, which ties his career best rebounding performance. 

Senior forward Melvin Ford (Voorhees, NJ/Eastern Regional) had 16 points with eight rebounds before fouling out of the contest. Ford who is Sage's all-time career rebounding leader now has 607 rebounds, while standing No. 5 in career scoring with 840 points and is now No. 4 on the all-time career scoring list having moved ahead of Kai Deans, who finished his career at Sage last year with 826 points. Ford also has 50 career blocked shots, which ranks fourth all-time at Sage.

MCLA had four players finish in double-digits as starters Careem Kirksey and Khalil Paul tallied 15 and 12 points respectively.

Sage is back in action on January 4 travelling to SUNY-Maritime for a 7 p.m. Skyline Conference contest.