St. John Fisher Takes E8 Crown - Mar 2, 2015

The nationally-ranked St. John Fisher College men's basketball program won the Empire 8 Conference Championship on Saturday, as the top-seed Cardinals came away a 77-62 win over No. 2 seed Alfred University.
With the win, Fisher, ranked No. 1 in the NCAA Division III East Region and No. 24 nationally, earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. Fisher (23-4) will find out Monday who and where it will play in the 62-team national tournament.
Stefan Bock (6'1''-G) was selected as the Championship's Most Valuable Player. The senior scored a career-high 25 points, and on the defensive end, held Alfred's Tyler Seelman (5'11''-PG), who was averaging 15.8 points, to just five on 2-of-7 shooting.
Junior Chaz Lott (6'0''-PG-93) was named to the All-Championship Team. Lott tallied 10 points, seven rebounds and a career-high 12 assists.
The game looked like it was going to be a blowout early on, as the Cardinals raced to 26-9 lead before the 10-minute mark.
The Saxons (19-8), however, refused to go away and trimmed the Fisher-lead down to six at 34-28 going into the locker room.
Fisher pushed its lead back to double-digits at 40-30 early in the second half, but the Saxons chipped away and took their first lead of the night at 47-46 on a 3-pointer with just over 11 minutes to go.
With just over eight minutes to go, Fisher took the lead for good a driving layup from Bock. The Saxons trailed by just four with under four minutes to go, but the Cardinals delivered 3-pointers - one from Tyler Hart (6'0''-PG) and one from Optimystik Kinard (6'6''-G/F-93)- on back-to-back possessions to put Fisher up 10 with 90 seconds left.
Fisher shot 55.3% from the floor for the game, including 6-of-12 from 3-point range.
Kinard and Hart each finished with 11 points, while Keegan Ryan (6'7''-F-94) totaled 12 points.
The victory marks Fisher's first Empire 8 title since 2006-2007 and will be the Cardinals' first trip to NCAAs since 2010.

Courtesy of Empire8

Empire8 Tournament Final: St. John Fisher - Alfred 77-62
Empire8 Tournament Semifinals:
Alfred - Hartwick 79-72
Ithaca - St. John Fisher 75-90

All-Empire8 1st Team 2015

Ryan

Ford

Walsh

Lott

Norton