Staten Island, NY | The College of Staten Island men’s basketball team won for the fifth-straight time, jumping over the .500 mark in the process with a hard-fought, 91-70, win over visiting York College in a CUNYAC match played at The Tank this evening. The Dolphins lifted to 7-6 overall and 3-1 within the CUNYAC, while the Cardinals fell to 4-8, 0-4, respectively.
Despite the final score and the fact that the Dolphins led wire-to-wire, it took some time for the Dolphins to officially put the game away, as a persistent York side was able to cut into big CSI leads before CSI put up enough distance between the two sides in the later stages.
The Dolphins started the game on fire from behind the arc, canning six of their first 10 three-point attempts, all in the opening 5:28, to take a 20-10 lead over the visitors. Stephen Flagg delivered three of the triples. York, however, responded with an immediate, 7-0, run, helped along by a Luca Tamer three that cut the lead, and the game teetered back-and-forth from there. After Darin Dove cut the lead again to 26-21, CSI was able to respond with a 14-7 run, highlighted by seven points from Adeola Latunji, whose dunk at 6:22 ignited the crowd, and then added a three. York would again cut the lead to as few as seven, and CSI would go up by 14 before ultimately settling for a 47-35 advantage at intermission.
CSI was the hotter team coming out of the gate in the second stanza, and after taking 24 three-point attempts in the first half, CSI pushed the ball on the interior to start the second. Jumpers by Christian Taylor and Flagg pulled CSI up by as many as 19 in the early stages and the home side matched the lead three more times. A Jonathan Jones jumper kept York invested by cutting the lead to just 13, 62-49 with 13:42 to go. The Cardinals would cut the lead to 13 on a few more occasions before a Devine Chisholm three got the lead down to just 10, 69-59, with 8:22 to go.
Needing a response, CSI delivered. The Dolphins went on a 12-2 bender over the next three-plus minutes, spearheaded by a pair of Flagg jumpers and another bucket by Taylor. Six more points from Taylor got CSI up by as many as 24, before CSI coasted to the 21-point final margin of victory, 91-70.
Taylor would finish with a game-high 26 points, canning 11-of-17 from the field while adding eight rebounds. Flagg was next in line with 18 markers and seven rebounds, while Latunji posted 16 points and a team-high nine rebounds. Both Chisholm and Dove scored 21 for the Cardinals in defeat, with the two combining for 41 of York’s 72 shots taken. The Dolphins shot a crisp 46.8% for the contest (36-77), posting 13-of-33 three-pointers (39.4%). York finished shooting just 34.7% from the field (25-72) and were out-rebounded by the Dolphins, 50-42.
The Dolphins will be looking to stay hot this weekend, when they continue CUNYAC play by welcoming in Hunter College on Saturday at 3:00 pm.
GAME VIDEO
