ROCHESTER, NY – Despite a road matchup with the conference's top seeded Nazareth Golden Flyers, the Hartwick Hawks made a game of it and put a scare into the hosts who came in on an 18-game win streak.  With a halftime lead, Hartwick (0-16, 0-8) kept the game close but was unable to overcome a flurry of scoring in the opening 5 minutes of the second as Nazareth (19-1, 11-0) eventually took the game.
 
Hartwick didn't let the 3-11 deficit in the opening minutes of the game get to them, as they battled with Nazareth to eventually pull even at the 5:29 mark, and then taking their first lead with 3:09 to play.  Cooper Francis hit the jumper to put his team ahead and then Kevin Felasco hit from long range to go up 5.  After a layup by Nazareth, Anthony Girard hit on his next two three pointers to push the Hartwick lead to 7 with less than a minute to play.  However, Nazareth was able to muscle their way to 5 points in those final 49 seconds to cut Hartwick's lead to just 2 at the half.
 
An 8-0 run for Nazareth to start the second really turned the game around for the hosts, who needed their best efforts to overcome Hartwick's pressure all day.  Sammuel Prosper put a stop to that run with a mid-range jumper, the first of quite a few for him in the half.   As Nazareth pushed their lead into double digits, Nick Eiler connected on a driving score to keep the game within reach at 42-50 with 14 minutes to play.  Despite more hot shooting by the Golden Flyers to bring the lead quickly to double digits again, Zach Hayn hit his own long range shot from the wing to remind Nazareth that the Hawks weren't going away while there was still 11 minutes to play.
 
Although Nazareth was able to build a 15 point lead and led by 14 for much of the remaining 10 minutes, it never felt as if Hartwick was out of it.  Impressively, Hartwick went on an 18-11 run to pull to within 8 at the 3 minute mark, after layups from Cooper Francis and Nick Eiler.  Sammuel Prosper scored 6 during that stretch to help the team stay in it.  Unfortunately, Hartwick was only able to manage a single point in those final 3 minutes and the comeback bid fell short.
 
Hartwick was led by Sammuel Prosper off the bench who had a career high 14 points on 6-11 shooting with  a career and team high 6 assists.  Cooper Francis followed with 12 of his own and a team high 8 rebounds in the game.  Hartwick shot 40% from the field (25-62) and 35% (7-20) from long range. 
 
The Hawks have a tough week coming up, with 4 conference games on the schedule.  All games will be played in Lambros Arena, with the first being on Tuesday against Utica at 7:30pm.