Hamburg, NY - As part of their second game of a three game road trip, the D'Youville Men's Basketball Team fell to the Hilbert Hawks on Wednesday evening by the final score of 87-79.

Hilbert jumped out to an early 4-0 lead over D'Youville in the first minute of the game, extending their lead just :30 later. The Spartans began to get their offense going with a Matt Insley (Wellsville, NY/Wellsville) three-pointer and the team took the lead on their next possession with a Conor Gallivan (Elma, NY/Iroquois) made layup. Insley's three-pointer led to a 17-2 run in favor of the Spartans. Half way through the first, Nate Sweetman (Johnstown, NY/Johnstown) made a three-pointer to give D'Youville their largest lead of the half, going up by 21. 

D'Youville maintained their lead, with the Hawks slowly chipping away at the Spartan lead. With 4:17 remaining, Hilbert closed the lead to 13 but Matt Insley quickly answered with another three-pointer to send the Spartans back up by 16. The home team would close out the half scoring 6 unanswered points, trailing the Spartans by the score of 46-36 at the half.

Julian Reed (Cheektowaga, NY/Union-Endicott) scored the opening basket of the second half, but the Hawks came out aggressive on the offensive end to close in on the Spartan lead. Hilbert chipped away at the lead once again, eventually tying the score at 56 with 12:29 remaining in the game. Just over a minute later, the Hawks took back the lead for the first time since the opening minutes of the game. 

Once taking over the lead, the Hawks outscored D'Youville 13-4 over the next 5 minutes to expand their lead. A Julian Reed made free throw closed the gap to 4 with 3:44 remaining in the game following a Jon Gemerek (Cheektowaga, NY/Depew) made layup and free throw from a foul. Hilbert would take their lead to the final horn, winning the game 87-79.

"The first half, we played like a championship team both on offense and defense," said fourth year Head Coach Earl Schunk. "The second half we reverted to some of the things that we did poorly in the first half of the season."

Julian Reed led the way for the Spartans on offense, scoring 20 points and grabbed 6 rebounds, also a team high. Jon Gemerek scored 15 points to go with his 3 rebounds and 3 assists. Matt Insley scored 10 points and dished out 4 assists. 

Zach Blask (Portville, NY/Portville) continued his inspired play, scoring 7 points off the bench. Marcus Clarke (Olean, NY/Archbishop Walsh Academy) also scored 7 points and tied the team high with 4 assists while bringing in 4 rebounds. Conor Gallivan and Nate Sweetman also contributed to the team's offensive output, scoring 8 and 5 points respectively. 

Coach Schunk knows that with only a few games left in the season, there isn't any time to waste dwelling on the loss.

"There is no time to pout right now, we have too much work ahead of us to get into the post season."

D'Youville will look to bounce back this Saturday, January 31st as they head to La Roche. The team will tip off against the Redhawks at 3pm.