ROCHESTER, N.Y. - They held one of the Liberty League's highest scoring teams a dozen points below their average. They held one of the Liberty League's top scorers 20 points below his.

But a brief period of cold shooting - a couple of missed layups, a couple of missed foul shots - and the Bard College men's basketball team came up short against Rochester Institute of Technology, 64-59, in a Liberty League game on Friday night.

When these teams met 20 days previous, RIT's A.J. Horde (Oak Park, MI) torched the Raptors with 27 points, eight assists and seven rebounds, and RIT won the game in Annandale by 10.

But a collective effort to contain the diminutive guard worked - man-to-man, some zone, lots of switching - and Horde really had an off night. Both teams shot 52 percent in the first half, but Horde had just two points at halftime, and Bard held a 32-31 lead.

The Tigers got off to a fast start in the second half and grabbed their biggest lead, 49-40, with 9:30 left in the game. They were still shooting 52 percent from the floor, but Bard wasn't. Bard responded, led by senior Chris Lockwood, and the Raptors scored seven points in the next two minutes to cut the deficit to just two.

That's when the cold spell happened. Bard managed three points over the next five minutes, allowing RIT to push the lead back to nine, 59-50, with 2:48 to go. RIT made just enough foul shots down the stretch to hold Bard off.

RIT improved to 11-8 overall, 5-5 in the Liberty League, and they're still in the playoff hunt. Bard is 2-15, 0-8.

Horde finished with two points and eight turnovers, but Troy-Pierre Louis (Providence, RI) and Justin Schneider (Aurora, NY) picked up the offensive slack with 20 and 14 points, respectively, for RIT.

Lockwood was terrific. He scored a career-high 23 points and 8-of-17 shooting and added four assists. Harry Johnson finished with a dozen points. Armando Dunn added nine points and eight rebounds; and freshman Christopher Rogers had six points, seven rebounds and six steals.

The Raptors will seek their first Liberty League win of the 2016-17 season on Saturday at Hobart. Follow it live right here at 4.