PITTSBURGH, Pa: The Pitt-Greensburg men's basketball team dropped the first game of their three game road swing to La Roche College Wednesday night, 84-71.

The loss drops the Bobcats to 14-8 on the season and 11-4 in the AMCC, just a game back of their next opponent, Hilbert College for second place in the league.

UPG took a 2-0 lead to open the game on a layup by Rocco Contristano, however the Redhawks rattled off 14 unanswered points to claim an early double digit point advantage.

La Roche led by as many as 15 in the first half, but the Bobcats would twice close the gap to just 4 points in the final 5 minutes of the first half.  The Redhawks closed the first half on a 12-4 run to grab a 49-37 lead at the break.

UPG shot 44% from the floor in the first half but just 3 of 11 from three point range while La Roche shot over 51% in the first twenty minutes.

 The Bobcat defense made some solid halftime adjustments, limiting the Redhawks to just 35 points over the final twenty minutes but were unable to find their stroke from the floor, particularly from three point range. From beyond the arc UPG was just 1 of 10 in the second half, and they were unable to cut into the Redhawks' double digit lead.

Leading the scoring for UPG was a pair of seniors in Contristano and Jerell Figueroa, each who poured in 20 points on the night.

Contristano was a perfect 4 for 4 from the free throw line and now is 93.9% from the charity stripe which leads the AMCC and was just percentage points away from leading the entire nation in NCAA Division III.  The leader out of Earlham College entered the week at 94.3%, but has only 53 attempts compared to Rocco's 131.

The race for a bye in the first round of the AMCC playoffs will be on full display this Saturday as the third ranked Bobcats travel to second ranked Hilbert College, trailing the Hawks but just one game in the standings. In the previous meeting, Hilbert knocked off UPG on its home court 101-87 back on January 16^th.  Game time in Hamburg, NY Saturday is set for 1pm.
 
GAME NOTES:
-With his 9 points tonight, Marcus Thomas now sits just 42 away from 1,000 for his career.  Thomas would join teammates Jerell Figueroa, Rocco Contistano and Mike Connelly as members of this exclusive club.