Less than two minutes into the game, with the score was tied at 5-5, Todd Lowber (Deltran/Riverside, NJ) then scored seven straight points for the Roadrunners. Included in that run were a thunderous dunk and an old-fashioned three-point play. Terrin Johnson (Curtis/Brooklyn, NY) hit a lay-up to bring the Yellow Jackets to within four, 22-18 at the midway point of the first half, but they could get no closer. Ramapo then erupted on a 19-9 run in the next six minutes. A layup by Benjamin Allen (Paramus Catholic/Clifton, NJ) gave Ramapo a sixteen point lead with just over two minutes until halftime 47-31. The Yellow Jackets responded by scoring the next four points to bridge the gap. A pair of City Tech turnovers in the final 1:10 of the first half led to Ramapo baskets and the Roadrunners again led by 16. Jason Senior (Satellite Academy/Brooklyn, NY), a senior forward, three-pointer in the waning seconds of the opening stanza cut the lead to 13, 55-42 at the break. Senior finished with 14 points in the final game of his collegiate career.
Ramapo began the second half on a 15-6 run, opening up a 22 point advantage with 14:45 to play. 70-48. The Roadrunners enjoyed a 32 point lead, their largest of the night, with 8:32 remaining in the game. City Tech senior center Shacun Malave (DeWitt Clinton/Bronx, NY) scored 18 of his team-high 23 points for the Yellow Jackets in the second half, but it wasn’t enough to prevent City Tech from suffering their worst loss of the season. Malave, a two-time CUNYAC all-star and a preseason All-American also had game-highs of 12 rebounds and five blocks. Previously, the team’s worst defeat of the season was a seven-point loss to Ramapo’s conference rival The College of New Jersey (87-80) back in December. The Yellow Jackets also received 14 points, five rebounds, four assists and four steals from sophomore guard Otis Saylee (Seward Park/New York, NY), who has played his best basketball of the season in the five games of the CUNYAC and NCAA Tounraments along with nine points from senior guard Nkosi Hamilton (August Martin/Queens, NY).
The loss marks the end of the career of long-time head coach Ray Amalbert, who announced his retirement from CUNY following the season, following 22 seasons overall. City Tech’s 68-66 road win over Ursinus College in the first round of the NCAA’s two days earlier marked the first NCAA Tournament victory for a CUNYAC team since 1998 and gave Amalbert his third career victory in the NCAA Championships, the previous three were at Hunter College. Moreover, in his ten seasons that his teams were eligible for the NCAA’s (he coached at City Tech during their junior college years and during their 4-year NCAA provisional stint); he went to the NCAA Championships an incredible six times.
“It was a great run,” said Amalbert in closing. “I’ve enjoyed this season tremendously and of course I’m sorry to see it end. But we were the first CUNY school to win a game in years and along with [assistant coaches] Charlie [Cotto] and Otis [Fenn] we built this team from scratch.”