Garden City, N.Y. -- While the Adelphi University men's basketball team played the Le Moyne College Dolphins, the top team in the Northeast-10 Conference's Southwest Division and the NCAA Division II East Region, close for the first 20 minutes, a five-point halftime deficit quickly spiraled away as the region's best team left the Center for Recreation and Sport with a 83-65 victory.

Prior to the start of the contest, the Panthers honored their three graduating seniors, Chris Millender, John Ferguson and Christopher John as well as manager Joe Grupski.

Michael Coffey's game-high 25 points kept Adelphi close earlier, as the junior scored 17 in the first half, but the Panthers (17-10, 10-9 NE10) were unable to counter four of Le Moyne's (19-5, 14-4 NE10) starting five, who all scored in double figures and shot over 50 percent from the floor. Jack Laffey also shot 50 percent (6-12) en route to 17 points, while Millender scored 11 of his own in the Adelphi effort. For the Dolphins, Russell Sangster scored a team-high 24 on 10-15 shooting, while Isaiah Eisendorf shot 7-14 for 17.

The league's first-place team doubled up the Panthers on the scoreboard early, but some timely shooting from deep by Laffey and Manny Suarez saw the Panthers pull to within two on three occasions over the first 10 minutes of the game, and another Coffey make from downtown saw the Panthers trail by a deuce, 30-28 with just under seven minutes until halftime. The Dolphins countered with six straight points to restore an eight-point lead, near their half-high of nine, before Adelphi hit back with seven unanswered, with five off the hand of Coffey to close the gap to one, 36-35. As the Dolphins went one and done down the other end, Adelphi looked to take its first lead since 2-0, but a timely steal and a layup from Sangster and a second jumper with under a minute to play gave Le Moyne a 40-35 lead at the break.

Adelphi scored five of the first seven points of the second half, with a Conor McGuinness three again cutting the Le Moyne lead to two, but the Dolphins quickly built momentum, ripping off the next 10 points as part of a 16-2 run that saw their lead balloon to 16, 58-42 and force an Adelphi timeout with just under 14 minutes to play. That proved to be the deciding run in the contest, as the Dolphins did not allow the Panthers to get any closer than that 16-point margin for the rest of the game.
 
The Panthers close out the regular season on Tuesday, Feb. 21 when they travel to American International for a 7:30 pm NE10 contest.

NOTES
- Le Moyne took advantage of 21 Adelphi turnovers, scoring 29 points off Panther miscues in the contest.

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About Adelphi Athletics:
Adelphi University joined the Northeast-10 Conference in the fall of 2009 and in the past seven seasons, has collected 20 regular season conference titles, 24 tournament championships, 29 individual crowns and captured the Northeast-10 Presidents' Cup three times (2013, 2014, and 2016), while winning five NCAA Division II National Championships.

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