Rochester, NY— The Sage Colleges' men's basketball team was in action on Saturday evening at Nazareth College for an Empire 8 match-up. The Golden Flyers of Nazareth remained perfect in league action as they collected an 82-78 win over Sage. Nazareth is now 9-3 overall and 4-0 in the Empire 8, while Sage falls to 5-9 overall and 1-4 in the league.
Nazareth led 44-39 at the half despite some impressive shooting by Sage as they shot 56.7% from the floor in the first stanza (17-30). In the second half, Sage held a 74-73 lead at 4:43 as sophomore forward Josh Gonzalez (Albany, NY/Canajoharie) hit a three-pointer. Nazareth and Sage exchanged baskets before senior forward Chris Kidd (Troy, NY/Beacon) added a layup at the 3:00 mark, giving Sage a 76-75 lead, which would be their last lead of the match-up.
Nazareth's Tyler Stenglein hit a layup to regain the lead at 2:39, (77-76) and three-pointer at 1:39 to put Nazareth up by four points down the stretch. He finished with 23 points to lead Nazareth in scoring.
Kidd added 14 second half points and finished with a double-double with 27 points and 11 rebounds. He shot 13-of-21 from the floor to lead Sage in scoring. Gonzalez hit 9-0f-14 from the floor and was 3-4 from three-point range and added 22 points.
Sophomore forward Anthony Mitchell (Bronx, NY/All Hallows) added 12 points, while junior guard Darius Denmark (Orlando, FL/Evans) tallied 11 points with five assists.
Sage is back in action on Tuesday, January 15 at Stevens for a 7:30 p.m. road Empire 8 contest.
