Men's Basketball | 1/29/2011 6:01:31 PM

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ROCHESTER, NY -- The RIT (8-10, 5-4 E8) men's basketball team fell behind early, rallied in the second half, but came up a touch short, losing to Ithaca College (15-4, 8-2 E8) 81-76 in Empire 8 action on Saturday afternoon.

The first half started with the Bombers Ithaca came out and scored the first six points of the game and led 18-6 a little less than eight minutes into the half.

RIT rallied from a 13-point deficit with 5:23 remaining in the opening half to outscore the Bombers 20-10 in that stretch, cutting Ithaca's lead to three points on a layup by Anthony Terry (Rochester, NY/Bishop Kearney) as time ran out in the half.

The Tigers cut a doouble-digit second half deficit to three points with less than a minute remaining. RIT's defense stiffened as the shot clock ran out, but Ithaca's Chris Cruz-Rivas snuck in the lane and grabbed the offensive rebound, shot, missed, grabbed another offensive board and layed the ball in to give the Bombers the win.

RIT shot 44.9 percent from the floor on 31-of-69 shooting. Anthony Terry (Rochester, NY/Bishop Kearney) finished with a team-high 31 points. Justin Heisig (Levittown, NY/Island Trees) added 21 points and grabbed eight rebounds.

Phil Barera led Ithaca with 21 points and 12 rebounds. Chris Cruz-Rivas added 17 points and had 13 rebounds as Ithaca remains atop the Empire 8 standings with an 8-2 conference record.

Ithaca held a 35-31 rebounding edge shooting 53.7 percent from floor including 41.7 percent from three-point land.

RIT returns to action on Tuesday, February 1 when they host NAzareth College at 8 pm at Clark Gym.