Sparkill, N.Y. - Despite an explosive night for Nick Cambio, the Adelphi University men's basketball team fell in its final contest of the 2017 calendar year with a 92-75 setback to the Spartans of St. Thomas Aquinas College on Saturday afternoon. 

Cambio paced Adelphi (5-9) in scoring against the defending NCAA Division II East Region champions, who have featured in the nation's Top 25 rankings this season as a follow up, with a career-best 24 points on 9-of-12 shooting from the floor, connecting for five triples - also a career best. The junior's previous career-best scoring oput was 13 points in a pair of contests over his career, but he eclipsed that mark thanks to his second-half scoring alone (17 points).

Michael Coffey added 18 for the Panthers, who were also undone by an 48-33 deficit in rebounding, which helped lead to 19 second-chance points for the Spartans.

However, the Panthers were largely undone by an explosive day for senior Spartans guard Justin Reyes, a three-time All-American from St. Thomas Aquinas' run to the Elite Eight a season ago. Reyes shot 18-for-21 from the field, including a three-pointer, while adding 12-14 from the foul line for a career-high 49 points to pace both his team and all scorers in the contest.

The Brown and Gold played the Spartans close over the first 20 minutes, holding a four-point lead (19-15) at the 10:21 mark behind a Coffey three. Nonetheless, the home team held a 41-40 lead at halftime thanks in large part to the efforts of Reyes, who posted 20 of his team's points in the first frame, counteracting 10 each from Coffey and Terrel Martin-Garcia.

Reyes hit a layup and a three-point play in the first minute of the second half to spark a 10-3 run for the hosts to open up a 51-43 advantage and the senior largely took the game over from that point. Over a span of under eight minutes, Reyes scored 18 of his team's 22 points, as the second half began with a 22-9 stretch in scoring in favor of St. Thomas Aquinas.

While Cambio sank four of his five shots from behind the arc in the second half, the Panthers were unable to whittle the deficit to less than 10 from that point on.

The Panthers return to Northeast-10 Conference play in their next game, hosting the Greyhounds of Assumption College in the second half of a doubleheader with the women's team on Jan. 3. The men will tip-off at 7:30 p.m. in Garden City.

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About Adelphi Athletics
Adelphi University joined the Northeast-10 Conference in the fall of 2009, and in the past eight seasons, has collected 25 regular season conference titles, 26 tournament championships, 33 individual crowns and captured the Northeast-10 Presidents' Cup four times (2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017), while winning six NCAA Division II National Championships.

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