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RADNOR, Pa. – The Cabrini men's basketball team has pushed the nation's longest active conference win streak to 29 games following a 70-67 victory versus Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC) opponent Immaculata University on Thursday night at Nerney Field House. The win is also the Cavaliers' ninth straight and their 21st in a row at home overall, dating back to the start of the 2009-10 campaign.
Sophomore point guard Cory Lemons led the Cavaliers, scoring in double figures for the 14th time this season and for the 36th time in his career, totaling 22 points on 9-for-18 shooting. Lemons flirted with a triple-double, mixing in nine rebounds and seven assists.
Senior forward Dom Farrello contributed 14 points, draining 2-of-5 attempts from the 3-point stripe, and ripped down seven boards. Junior guard John Boyd paired 12 points with five boards.
Boyd, in his first season at Cabrini, played his freshman and sophomore campaigns at Immaculata, earning CSAC Second Team honors in 2009-10. He scored a team-high 20 points in the Cavaliers' 83-79 win at the Mighty Macs earlier this season on Jan. 20.
Senior guard Lamar Fisher and freshman forward Fran Rafferty each contributed eight points in the victory. Rafferty made two critical plays down the stretch on consecutive possessions to keep the Cavaliers at pace with the upset-minded Mighty Macs.
Tied at 61-61 with under 3:30 to play, Rafferty chased down a missed 3-point try from Farrello and set-up a pure 18-foot jumper from Lemons with a diving save out-of-bounds. On the Cabrini's next trip down, the freshman stepped into and knocked down a 3-point try that supplied the Cavaliers with a 66-63 advantage with just 2:14 remaining.
However, the Mighty Macs went undeterred and scored four unanswered points to assume a one-point edge, 67-66, with 64 ticks on the clock.
The Blue & White re-established a 68-67 advantage and a lead it would never relinquish on its next trip with two free throws from Farrello with 46 seconds remaining. Down two points, 69-67, a fall-away 3-point try from IU junior guard Darnell Malabet, was blocked by Farrello and gathered by Lemons.
Lemons sunk 1-of-2 at the stripe with six seconds on the clock, pushing the Cabrini lead to 70-67, before junior guard Rob Siter's last-second heave missed at the horn.
Siter finished with a game-high 24 points and gathered eight rebounds. Malabet and sophomore guard Kendall Peters each netted 13 points for Immaculata (8-11, 6-6 CSAC) in the loss.
Cabrini's ninth straight victory did not come easy by any stretch of the imagination. Immaculata opened the contest on a 12-0 run and held the Cavaliers without a field goal for the opening 8:30. The Blue & White shot just 36.4 percent from the floor in the second half.
Yet, similar to Cabrini's wins at home versus Keystone College on Jan. 7 and Centenary College on Jan. 22, it was a concerted effort on the defensive end that turned the tides early in the second half. The Cavaliers dug themselves out of a nine-point deficit at the intermission by forcing the Mighty Macs into nine turnovers in the second half and 19 for the game overall.
The Blue & White is 5-0 this season when trailing at halftime.
The victory is the Cavaliers' ninth straight, matching the program's second-longest win streak under third-year head coach Marcus Kahn. Last season, the Blue & White ran off streaks of nine consecutive and 10 consecutive en route to the CSAC title and an appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
The win also extends Cabrini's home win streak against CSAC opponents to a nation's-best 29 games. The Cavaliers have not lost a conference game at Nerney Field House since a 74-68 defeat versus Gwynedd-Mercy College on Jan. 31, 2008.
Cabrini (15-4, 11-1 CSAC) returns to the road for a date at CSAC opponent Baptist Bible College on Saturday, Feb. 5. Game time versus the Defenders is set for 4 p.m.
