Box Score NEW YORK - The Yeshiva University men's basketball senior class celebrated "Senior Night" at the Max Stern Athletic Center in grand fashion Saturday night, as upperclassmen
Gil Bash (Tel Aviv, Israel),
Arman Davtian (Haifa, Israel),
Dovie Hoffman (Tarzana, Calif.) and
David Schmelzer (Columbus, Ohio) combined for 28 points and 16 assists in aiding the Maccabees' 71-59, non-conference victory over visiting City College of New York.
Hoffman, one of 26 players in YU (9-13) men's basketball history (along with Bash) to score 1,000-plus points in a career, picked up a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds, while dishing out five assists -- helping the Maccabees to 22 helpers on 26 made field goals. Bash registered an 8-to-2 assist-to-turnover ratio on the night, while handing out a team-best eight assists. Davtian and Schmelzer (six rebounds) contributed four points apiece to the triumph.
Junior sharpshooter
Benjy Ritholtz (W. Hempstead, N.Y.) made 8-of-12 field goals (3-for-6 from 3-point range) en route to a team-high 20 points in the victory, while classmate
Shlomo Weissberg (Skokie, Ill.) scored 16 points (6-for-9 FG, 4-for-4 FT) and pulled down eight caroms.
CCNY (10-14) was led by a game-best 25 points by Jordan Ortega (team-high nine reb.), along with 17 points and nine assists from Terence Johnston and Paul Dail, respectively.
The two teams stayed within five points of each other for most of the first half, with the lead changing hands twice and the game tied on five occasions. An 11-2 run gave YU the lead for good, including a conventional 3-point play by Weissberg, and Ritholtz's put-back lay-in gave the Macs a 22-15 advantage with 3:30 remaining. Johnston hit a 3-ball and Ortega converted a hoop in the paint for the Beavers, before Schmelzer scored on a back-door pass from Bash to send Yeshiva into the locker room up 26-22.
The Macs went up by as many as 11 (39-28) when Ritholtz knocked down a trifecta with 14:23 to go, before Zachary Heiss's two 3-balls aided a 12-2 run by the visitors to cut CCNY's deficit to 41-40 with 11:09 remaining in the contest. The Maccabees' lead stayed in single digits for a large spell, before a 12-2 run of their own, including conventional 3-point plays by Weissberg and Hoffman, brought the hosts' lead to 69-54 with under a minute remaining to ice the win.
Head coach Dr. Jonathan Halpert's Yeshiva side now faces a crucial trio of Skyline Conference contests (5-10 record) -- all on the road -- next week to wrap up the regular season. The Macs sit in sixth place to start the week, with the top-six teams in the 10-team conference advancing to the Skyline Conference Championships (beginning Feb. 19). YU will play at Farmingdale State on Tuesday (8 p.m.) on Long Island, before traveling to Brooklyn to face NYU-Poly on Thursday at 8 p.m. The Maccabees' regular-season slate wraps up Saturday (Feb. 16), when it takes on local rival Maritime College in the Bronx in an 8:30 p.m. tip-off.
