GREENSBURG, Pa:  After trailing by seven points at the half, Pitt-Greensburg shot 57% from the floor in the second half to rally past La Roche on Wednesday night at home, 71-64.

UPG trailed by as many as 15 in the first half, and shot just 31% from the floor, spotting the Redhawks a 33-26 lead in a low scoring first half.

In the second half, with the scored tied 52-52 and just under 8 minutes remaining, the Bobcats caught fire and went on a 10-0 run sparked by back to back layups from junior Rocco Contristano.

UPG quickly built a 10 point lead with just over 5 minutes remaining in the game.  The Redhawks would battle back to cut the lead to just 5 points in the game's final minutes, but would get no closer as UPG held on for their 12^th victory of the year. 

Junior Mike Connelly led the Bobcats with 16 points on 7 of 12 shooting.  Forward Marcus Thomas added another double-double to his resume, grabbing 16 rebounds to go along with 12 points.  Contristano chipped in 12 points and 6 rebounds to round out the scoring for UPG.

Senior Brian Heinle added 4 points in the win, bringing his career total to 996, just 4 points short of becoming the 8^th 1,000 point scoring in Pitt-Greensburg men's basketball history.

The Bobcats now sit at 12-10 overall and 12-3 in the conference, tied for 2^nd in the league with Medaille College with 3 games remaining.  Medaille currently holds the tiebreaker over UPG for the #2 seed with two head to head victories over the Bobcats.  Pitt-Greensburg has already clinched one of the top four spots and will at minimum host a first round playoff game.  The last time a UPG men's basketball playoff game was played in Chambers Hall was ten years ago in the 2004-2005 season when UPG was the #1 seed and hosted the AMCC tournament.  

UPG will welcome in Hilbert College this Saturday for a 4pm tip-off in Chambers Hall.  The Hawks are 12-4 in the AMCC and sit just a ½ game back of UPG for the #3 seed.  The Bobcats edged Hilbert 100-98 in a double overtime thriller in Buffalo back on January 17^th. 

Pitt-Greensburg will close out the regular season with home contests against Hilbert (Feb 14) and Mount Aloysius (Feb 18) followed by a road contest at Penn State Behrend (Feb 21). 

The AMCC playoffs will begin with the 1^st round matchups on Tuesday, Feb 24^th, followed by the semi-finals and finals on Feb 27^th and 28^th.

UPG seeks to win its first AMCC Championship since winning the conference crown in back to back seasons in 1998-99 and 1999-2000.