DelRosario's bucket in triple overtime lifts MCLA past RPI 80-78

Courtesy of SVC Sports Information

Bennington, VT- Ruben DelRosario drilled the game winning shot at the buzzer in the third overtime in leading the MCLA Men's Basketball team past RPI 80-78 in the opening round of the Tri State Shootout.  With the win, MCLA improves to 2-4 and will face tournament host Southern Vermont in the championship game tomorrow at 3.  RPI falls to 1-5 and will face Vermont Tech at 1 tomorrow.

The game saw RPI go up by as many as six in the opening half, only for the Trailblazers to come back and tie things going into the locker room. MCLA then went up by eight with under seven minutes to play in regulation, but the Engineers made the necessary shots down the stretch to tie the game 56-56 as time expired.

The two teams fought hard through each overtime, neither side leading by more than four through the duration of the three extra sessions. With the score set at 78-76 in favor of MCLA, Rensselaer juniorBrian Hatcher (Danbury, Connecticut) made a layup with seven seconds to go to tie it at 78-78. Empty of timeouts, MCLA ran the floor before senior Ruben Delrosario (Springfield, Massachusetts) got a shot off right before the buzzer; with the red lights on the backboard glowing, the ball found its way through the hoop as the Trailblazers celebrated their dramatic victory.

MCLA junior Khalil Paul (Troy, New York) scored a team-high 28 points while classmate Paul Maurice (Mattapan, Massachusetts) followed with 15 off the bench. Delrossario finished with 10 points to go with his seven rebounds and four assists, a mark that tied the game-high.

Engineer junior Tyler Gendron (Merrimack, New Hampshire) scored a side-best 27 points off the bench on 11-18 field goal shooting, adding six rebounds in the effort. Classmate Chase Almond(South Kingstown, Rhode Island) put up a double-double with 24 points and a monstrous game-high of 17 rebounds while blocking a pair of Trailblazer shots.

RPI owned a 12-10 advantage in offensive rebounds, but the Engineers turned those into 12 second-chance points while MCLA only tallied four. Rensselaer shot at a 27-72 clip (37.5 percent) from the floor, and the Trailblazers finished with a 40.6 (28-69) field goal percentage. The game saw a total of 12 lead changes and 16 ties with neither team leading by more than eight at any point.