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HAMILTON – Top performances from seniors Murphy Burnatowski and Chad Johnson, and junior Ethan Jacobs helped Colgate ease past Lafayette 83-66 on Senior Day for its first two-game winning streak since December.
 
Prior to Wednesday's game against the Leopards, Colgate acknowledged three special seniors for their continued devotion to the men's basketball program. Burnatowski, Johnson, and Clayton Graham played in their final regular season contest on Cotterell Court and they sure didn't disappoint as they combined for 40 of the Raiders' 83 points.
 
"The seniors started us off," head coach Matt Langel said. "They were a great defensive presence in the beginning of the game. We got our hands on a couple basketballs, got some steals and got off to a great start. Fortunately, we never really looked back.
 
"Going into halftime up 11 was big, and then we were able to extend the lead. We knew Lafayette was going to go on a run because they are a fantastic offensive basketball team. They've really been playing better than anybody in our league other than a hiccup against Boston University since we played them last, but we defended our home court. Our guys were focused, they were locked in, they did a great job on their shooters, and then we were able to hold on late and make some foul shots."
 
Those 83 points were Colgate's fourth highest scoring night of the season.

Early Charge Sets the Pace
After Lafayette scored the game's first bucket, Colgate responded with a 20-5 run to create a 13-point margin between the teams. The Raider lead was never really in danger from that point on as Colgate held a double-figure advantage for almost the remainder of the game.
 
"We were focused on our details," Langel added. "We switched a lot of the actions they run to get a player like (Joey) Ptasinski open shots, but our guys were disciplined about not leaving them open and we found them in transition to not let them get some of those looks."
 
Colgate (11-17, 5-12 PL) received a game-high performance from Burnatowski, who went 8-of-12 from the floor, 3-of-6 from long and 6-of-7 from the charity stripe for his 25 points -- two points shy of his season-high. He also added two steals and two boards in his fifth-straight double-digit scoring game. The Waterloo, Ont., native now needs just 43 more points to reach the 1,000-point plateau in his two years for the Maroon and White.
 
Fellow teammate Jacobs notched his first career double-double, recording 18 points while also pulling down 10 boards. The junior from Tipton, Ind., handed out a career-high four assists in the contest. Johnson added 13 points to the Raider total to earn himself a career-high performance as well. He went 5-of-9 from the floor and 2-of-2 from the free throw line for his second double-digit scoring game of the season.
 
Austin Tillotson was two short of his career-high as the sophomore handed out a game-high seven assists. He also draining four of his five shots for eight points.

Hot Shooting Throughout
Overall, the Raiders shot 61 percent and an impressive 68 percent in the second 20 minutes. Colgate also made six of its 17 attempts from long to finish the night shooting 35 percent from downtown. The Raiders outrebounded the Leopards 30-25, while posting 11 points off of Lafayette turnovers.
 
Lafayette (10-18, 6-11 PL) saw rookie Nick Lindner record a career-high 24 points after going 11-of-15 from the floor. The freshman also handed out a team-high six assists in the game. Junior Dan Trist added 19 points, while Ptasinski led the Leopards on the boards with four.
 
The Leopards finished the game shooting 47 percent from the floor and a mere 20 percent from long.
 
It was also a battle inside for both teams as Colgate slightly outscored the Leopards 38-36 on points inside the paint.

Colgate opened the game on fire, hitting eight of its first 11 shots to take a 18-7 edge with 13 minutes left to play in the first. Burnatowski had three of those eight shots and the Raiders forced the Leopards to turn the ball over four times during that stretch.
 
The Leopards cut Colgate's lead to four, but a 9-2 run for the Raiders to close out the half sent them into the break up 42-31. During the Colgate run, Tillotson had back-to-back makes, Burnatowski jammed home a dunk and Jacobs hit a trey with 12 seconds remaining.
 
The teams exchanged buckets to start the second half until Colgate again got hot. This time it was a 7-0 run, sparked by an and-1 from Burnatowski to extend the Raider lead to 55-38 with 15 minutes to play. The 17-point margin was Colgate's largest of the game to that point.
 
Lafayette responded with an 8-0 run of its own to pull within 55-46 after a jumper from Lindner. The Leopards kept the Raiders scoreless during that time for more than 5½ minutes until Damon Sherman-Newsome ended the Colgate drought with a jumper.
 
Tillotson and Jacobs made back-to-back layups to give the Raiders a 70-57 edge with less than three minutes to play and watched the Leopards pull only to within nine throughout the remainder of the game. Colgate secured the double-digit victory after going 11-of-12 from the charity stripe in the final two minutes of action. Burnatowski had five of those 11 makes.
 
Alive for First-Round Home Game
Colgate heads to Bethlehem, Pa., on Saturday for its regular season finale against Lehigh at 2 p.m. Colgate earns a first-round home game with a victory over the Mountain Hawks.
 
"At this point, the rest of these games are all the biggest games of our year," Langel said about Colgate's final regular season matchup on Saturday. "That's the way we are looking at it.

"Our guys have been through a lot this season. We've lost a lot of heartbreaking games, a lot of closely contested games, and hopefully we have now learned how to find a way to win."