St. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Senior Isaiah Hill snagged a rebound with eight-seconds to play before going coast-to-coast and laying it in to propel Saint Leo men's basketball to a 79-77 road win over Eckerd Wednesday night in Sunshine State Conference play inside the McArthur Center.

After the game, head coach Lance Randall stated, "we took a great punch from Eckerd tonight. We did not play our best game and we uncharacteristically missed some free throws."
 
Hill finished with 16 points on 7-of-13 shooting stole the spotlight from fellow senior Kyran McClure who paced Saint Leo (13-5, 7-3 SSC) with a game-high 28 points. McClure sank 10-of-13 free throws to go along with his 6-for-11 night from beyond the arc. Rusty Moorer added 14 points in the mix for the Green and Gold.
 
The Lions finished the game with a 41.1-shooting percentage (23-56) while going 40.7-percent from downtown (11-27) with a 71-percent night from the charity stripe. Saint Leo has now won four straight contests to close out the first half of the SSC season with a 7-3 mark.

Randall continued, "I thought we did a great job creating turnovers all night, but especially so in the last few minutes in the press. Whenever we got a stop or created a turnover, we kept our poise and the result was that we made some huge shots. Kyran's six threes; Rusty's deep three was a monster followed by the game-winner by Isaiah. Defensively, Malik Fuller gave us a big burst of energy off the bench and we needed that."
 
After a quick game-opening three from Kyran McClure, Eckerd (7-10, 3-6 SSC) would tie things and take the lead for seven minutes. The Lions would tie things back up at 13 apiece where the Tritons then road a momentum wave to go up by seven, 20-13. After finding themselves down by eight, 27-19, the Green and Gold used an 11-0 run to take three points lead, 30-27, capped by six straight free throws. Eckerd would rally once again and go for an 11-3 run to close the half to take a 38-33 lead to the break.
 
Eckerd opened the second half and moved out to a quick 11-points advantage, 47-36 before the Lions rallied to tie things at 51 apiece with 9:41 to play. After a little back-and-forth action, the Tritons regained the lead and found themselves up by nine with 3:40 to play, 71-62. After going up by 10, 75-65, with 2:31 to play, Saint Leo found a way to cut into the deficit and make it just a two-point game, 76-74, with 1:22 on the clock. A missed floater with 54-ticks left, the Lions took the ball down the court where McClure found Rusty Moorer who drained the deep three with confidence and put the Green and Gold up 77-76 with 40-seconds to play.

After the Tritons went 1-for-2 from the free-throw line to tie things at 77-77, Isaiah Hill grabbed a rebound went coast to coast and laid it in for a 79-77 lead with 1.7 seconds left. The Tritons last heave was no good as the Green and Gold left with a win.

"I was proud of the way our guys refused to lose and showed great competitive spirit and willed ourselves to a tough SSC road win," Randall concluded.
 
Up Next
Saint Leo will remain on the road as the Green and Gold travel to Melbourne on Saturday to take on Florida Tech at 4 p.m.
 
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