New York, N.Y. --- The John Jay men’s basketball team lost in its 2007-08 conference opener as the Bloodhounds were defeated by Baruch College, 84-74, at the Doghouse on Tuesday evening.
The Bearcats scored the first four points of the contest and never trailed in the affair. Behind hot shooting, Baruch went into halftime with a 23 point lead (52-29) after shooting 71 percent (22-for-31) in the first half, including an 87 percent clip (20-for-23) from inside the three point arc. Baruch outscored the Bloodhounds 48-38 in the paint, including 30-12 in the first half.
Baruch outscored John Jay 8-5 in the opening minutes of the second half to take its biggest lead of the night of 26 points (60-34), capped off by a fast break lay-up by Lionel Hilaire (Far Rockaway, NY / Archbishop Molloy), who had 19 points for the Bearcats.
But John Jay established a run to get to within striking range. After being held scoreless in the first half, Alex Valerio (Flushing, NY / Francis Lewis) poured in a team-high 20 points in the second half and scored on five consecutive possession in the midst of a 19-3 run to narrow the deficit to 67-55 at the 8:34 mark on a free throw by Valerio, who scored 17 of the Bloodhounds’ 19 points during the run.
John Jay then got the deficit to 11 on a three point field goal by Vince Calderon (Woodside, NY / Queens Vocational) with 7:31 to play.
But a 6-0 Baruch run put the Bearcats back up by 17 with 6:04 to play, and John Jay never got to within single digits. Baruch went back up by as much as 19 before John Jay put together a mild rally in the final minute to draw to within eight points (82-74) with four seconds remaining, which proved to be as close as the Bloodhounds would get.
Chris Jaeger (Hicksville, NY / Hicksville) recorded 12 points and 12 rebounds for John Jay, while Emilio Gomez (Moca, Dominican Republic / William Taft) had 11. Vaughn Mason (Bronx, NY / Alfred E. Smith) scored 14 for John Jay.
George Kunkle (Glendale, NY / Archbishop Molloy) paced Baruch with 20 points (8-for-9 shooting) and 10 rebounds.
John Jay returns to action on Fri. Dec. 7 at Hunter College at 8:20 p.m.
