The Bard College men's basketball team sweeps the series against Hobart for the first time in program history, defeating the Statesmen at home back on Jan. 17 and on Saturday afternoon, 76-60 at Bristol Gym.
Lazaros Panagiotounis led the Raptors with 23 points and nine rebounds.
Ahmad Rauf and
Azriel Almodovar each had 14 points with Almodovar making a career-high 10 free throws (10-of-12). Rauf shot 3-of-4 from behind the arc and added five rebounds and two assists.
Almodovar had three steals that got him to surpass Jamell Kendrick in the career steals leaderboard and become 2nd all-time with 213 steals. He also added five rebounds which puts him 5th all-time in career rebounds with 593, surpassing Frank Stortini.
Sean Wilcox had his 15th double-digit point game of the season, with 10. He added seven rebounds, three assists, three blocks and a steal. Wilcox currently sits 3rd all-time in career blocks with 105 (five away from surpassing Siondieh Burnette with 108).
Lucas Tovar added seven points, going perfect from the line in 12 minutes of play.
Rowan Heinze added six points, six rebounds, three assists and a block, while
Luke Ravitz contributed with two points and three rebounds.
The Raptors shot 50% from the field in the first half in comparison to Hobart's 27.59%. Bard continued to keep their strong shooting on the floor as they shot 64.71%, tying their season-high field goal shooting of 56.1% (23-of-41), while outrebounding Hobart 43-24. In the first half, the Raptors jumped into an early 15-5 lead and never let Hobart get back into the first half, as Bard took a 32-24 lead heading into halftime.
In the second half, Bard scored two quick back-to-back buckets thanks to Wilcox and Heinze. Hobart went on a 5-0 mini run to cut down the deficit back to seven points, but Bard answered back with their 5-0 run. The Statesmen tied the game at 43-43 with 10 minutes left after a 14-2 run. Both teams went back and forth with three tied scores and five lead changes. At the 6:15 mark, Rauf shot a dagger three and Almodovar and Tovar made both of their free-throws to help the Raptors take a five point lead. With less than a minute left, Bard went on a 6-0 run after Hobart cut the deficit down to nine at the 1:30 mark.
Bard will host Ithaca and RIT next weekend as the Raptors keep their playoff contention alive. The Raptors will host Ithaca on Friday at 7:30 p.m. and will be supporting Morgan's Message, a mental health foundation for student-athletes, before they celebrate their five seniors on Saturday at 4 p.m. against RIT.
