NEW YORK, N.Y.— The Yeshiva University men's basketball team closed out its 2014-15 home schedule with a win on Thursday night as the Maccabees beat Farmingdale State College 75-56.
The win is the second in a row for the Maccabees who are now 13-10 overall this season and 10-7 in the Skyline Conference, while Farmingdale State falls to 8-16 this season and 6-11 in the Skyline Conference.
Yeshiva also solidified fifth place in the Skyline Conference regular season and will face No. 4 seed College at Old Westbury, in Old Westbury, New York, on Tuesday in the first round of the 2015 Skyline Conference playoffs. The time for this game will be announced shortly.
In Thursday's win, Yeshiva was led by
Shelby Rosenberg with 22 points, 10 rebounds and three blocked shots. Fellow teammate
Yisrael Feld came off the bench and scored 18 points and had five rebounds. Meanwhile
Benjy Ritholtz, playing in his final game at the Max Stern Athletic Center as a Yeshiva men's basketball player, scored 12 points, had six assists and five rebounds.
Farmingdale State was led by Justin Bailey with a game-high 24 points.
The start of the first and second halves belonged to the visiting Rams, while the latter stages of them belonged to the Maccabees. Farmingdale State opened the game on an 8-0 run to take its biggest lead of the night. Yeshiva, held scoreless for the first three minutes, countered by outscoring the Rams 21-4 over the next five and a half minutes to take a 21-12 lead with 11:30 left to play. The Maccabees continued to increase their lead the rest of the half and they had their biggest lead of the period just before halftime as the score was 44-25 at the break.
The second half started the same way the first half did, with Farmingdale State taking control. The Rams opened the period by scoring the first 10 points to get back to within single digits, and the score was 44-35 with 15:20 remaining. In all it was a 12-1 run to start the second half. After Yeshiva finally scored its first point in the period, at the 14:43 mark, the Rams netted two more points to drop their deficit to eight.
The Maccabees though weathered the storm by outscoring the opponent 17-6 over the next seven minutes to pull ahead 61-43 with 7:40 to play. Then in the final two minutes, the Maccabees extended the lead to twenty-one to put the game out of reach.
Yeshiva shot just a shade under fifty percent as the Maccabees connected on 30-of-61 from the floor for a 49.2 percent clip. The Rams made 24-of-61 shots, including 0-for-13 from behind the three point line, for a 39.2 percent showing.
The Maccabees outscored the Rams in the transition game by outscoring them 23-9 on points off turnovers. Yeshiva also held a 16-8 advantage on second chance points, and the Maccabees outscored the opponent 31-12 on points off the bench.
Yeshiva will wrap up its 2014-15 regular season on Sunday for a game at Farmingdale State at 1 p.m.
