Beavers Rally Falls Short For Second Night In A Row

If there was anything that isn’t meant to be, it’s possibly a CCNY win.For the second straight night, the Beavers saw their second-half rally fall short as City lost to Lehman 71-66, marking their fifth straight loss.Despite trailing by 10 at halftime, the Beavers tried to rally back in the second half, outscoring Lehman 39-34.“I thought our effort was real good,” head coach Tom Green said after the game.  “Obviously it wasn’t for the full 40 minutes, but when we turned it on I thought it was real good.”CCNY started off sharp out the gate, taking an early 20-16 lead with 9:12 left in the half.  The Beavers offensive struggles crept up once again towards the latter half of the first as Lehman went on an 18-2 run to take a 37-27 halftime lead.The Beavers 39-point second half saw CCNY rally back down 10, 55-45, with 8:18 left, going on a 17-8 run to pull within one, 63-62 with 1:49 left.City committed seven turnovers in the second half, including two in the opening minutes of the second half and the Beavers also could not capitalize on a scoring play in the paint, missing three straight chances at the layup before Leman’s Olando Minott came down with the eventual rebound.“We had some very untimely turnovers,” Green added.After a layup by Jonathan Greenfield to put Lehman up 65-62 with 1:32 left, sophomore Khalil Hamer’s layup with 1:07 left pulled City back within one again, 65-64.  Chaun Miller hit another layup for the Lightning to put Lehman up 67-64 with 45 seconds left.After Minott hit a pair of free throws to put Lehman up 69-64, Hamer hit another layup to put City within three, 69-66.  City’s best chance at completing the comeback came just after Hamer’s layup when he stole the inbounds pass, however he missed the layup just after.  He would get a second chance to cut the lead to one, but missed another layup with 13 seconds left and Greenfield dropped a pair of free throws to seal the win.Senior Anthony Lewis scored just eight points Friday night, ending his 33-game streak of scoring in double-digits which started back on November 26, 2013.  He did grab 12 rebounds in the effort.  Hamer and Manfred Cadet scored a team-high 15 points for the Beavers with Dave Solano scoring 13 while going 3-for-5 from beyond the arc.“We’re disappointed that we played this hard and still got the ‘L’,” Solano said.“At the end of this game we played very well together and showed that we can compete with anybody.”Friday night marked the second straight night that City’s second half rally fell short.  Against Hunter on Wednesday night, the Beavers went on a 10-0 run midway in the second half to pull within two, 56-54 with 7:49 left.  However the Hawks went on a run of their own, putting the game away on a 15-2 run.CCNY (6-13, 1-11 CUNYAC) still remains half-a-game out of the CUNYAC playoff picture with Medgar Evers barely holding onto the eight-seed after losing to Baruch 74-43.  Both teams play each other in the regular season finale at City, possibly with the playoffs on the line.