The Medgar Evers College men's basketball team played a road CUNYAC contest against York College in Jamaica, NY, on Monday, February 11.
The Cougars (8-16, 6-9 CUNYAC) defeated the Cardinals (9-16, 5-11) by a final score of 95-83, eliminating York from playoff contention. MEC, CCNY (6-9) and Lehman College (5-10) are fighting for the final two playoff spots entering the final game of the season, where MEC plays Brooklyn and CCNY plays Lehman.
If MEC loses to Brooklyn AND Lehman defeats CCNY, then all three teams would be tied at 6-10 and MEC would miss the playoffs on tiebreakers, the tiebreaker being head-to-head record among the tied teams. If either MEC or CCNY win, then MEC will qualify for the CUNYAC playoffs and will play a road quarterfinal game on Saturday, February 16.
Now, back to tonight's game. The Cougars raced out to a 24-10 lead midway through the first half, before York replied with a 12-0 run to cut the deficit to 2. The teams traded buckets and the black-and-gold entered the locker room up 33-27, with neither team scoring in the last 2:20 of the first half.
In the second half, the offenses exploded as MEC began to rain three-pointers, hitting 10 of 12 in the half. Medgar held a double-digit lead throughout the second half, and in second half alone,
Joancarlo Bonilla connected of seven of nine three pointers and scored 30 points, finishing with a career-high 35, while
Justin Sutton tallied 20 in the second half himself, finishing with 34.
The 62-point second half was the Cougars' highest-scoring since at least 2010 and is the highest-scoring half by any CUNYAC team this season.
Sean Webb finished with nine assists, while
Darrell Spaulding tallied 14 points on 4-of-6 from deep. Bonilla finished with eight three-pointers and was 10-of-17 from the field, while Sutton was 3-of-5 from deep, 10-of-15 from the floor and 11-of-12 from the charity stripe.
After hitting only 1 out of 19 three-point attempts in a loss to John Jay, the Cougars rebounded in a big way, hitting 16 of 28 against York.
The Cougars return to action on Wednesday, February 13, at home against Brooklyn College in the team's regular season finale, which is also senior night.
