Men's Basketball | 1/6/2012 10:05:00 PM

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TROY, NY -- The RIT men's basketball team dropped their Liberty League opener 104-93 at Rensselaer (4-5, 1-0 LL) on Friday night. The loss drops the Tigers to 4-6 on the season and 0-1 in the Liberty League.

RIT shot well from the floor, hitting 54.7 percent on the evening, but were only 5-of-20 from behind the arc and attempted just 11 free throws to 29 for the Engineers.

Rensselaer held a slight rebounding 45-40 over the Tigers. RIT outscored the Engineers down low, tallying 54 points in the pain to 36 for the Engineers. RIT went 8-of-13 from the foul line, while Rensselaer was 20-of-29 from the charity stripe.

The Tigers led by four early in the first half but trailed 55-47 at the half.

RIT trailed by as many as 12 points in the second half, but fought back with a 7-2 run over a 3:05 span, cutting RPI's lead to three points on a layup by Nick Dobson (Corning, NY/Corning West) at the 13:32 mark.

The Engineers stretched the lead back out to 10 points with 10:58 to play, and led by as many as 15 points in the second half.

Senior Justin Heisig (Levittown, NY/Island Trees) led the Tigers with 21 points and 10 rebounds. Brendan Harder (Oneonta, NY/Oneonta) chipped in 13 points, while the trio of Dobson, Gabe Nicasio (Essex Junction, VT/Essex) and Eric Travis (Chicago,IL/Hinsdale South) each had 12 points.

Freshman point guard Desmond Scott (Murphy, TX/Plano East) scored eight points and dished out five assist for the Tigers who will face Skidmore College on Saturday, Jan. 7 at 4 pm in Saratoga Springs, NY.