BUFFALO, N.Y. -- With a limited bench and rotation of seven student-athletes, Head Coach Sydney Johnson saw his team put forth near-perfect execution in the first half and a late rally that almost enabled the Fairfield University men's basketball team to take a game from host Canisius College on Friday night. But in the end, the Golden Griffs were able to hold off the Stags' late charge and come away with a 72-68 decision at Koessler Athletic Center.
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"The guys laid it all out there tonight," Coach Johnson said following the game. "We outrebounded them. We were locked in on the free throw line and the execution in the first half was really good. The second half got away from us for a while but we were able to get it back in terms of focus. But there was a stretch that we could just not overcome at the start of the second half."

The Stags first-half play enabled the team to lead for the entire 20 minutes, holding a lead as large as nine points, before settling for a three-point lead when the buzzer sounded at 35-32. Junior Jesus Cruz, who has been the team's leading scorer over the last nine games, remained on task over the opening half. The guard led all scorers with 12 points with five field goals and a pair of free throws. Jonathan Kasibabu, who continues to chase his 1,000th point, was also in double digits with 10 points by the intermission.

Fairfield led by a point at 14-13 with nine minutes remaining in the half before the team went on a 10-4 run to open up the lead to 24-17 over the next four minutes. Cruz scored six of those 10 points with Kasibabu picking up the other four markers. The Stags collected their biggest lead a few minutes later at 29-20 before the Golden Griffs closed out the final two-plus minutes with a 12-6 spurt that brought the two teams within three points of each other when they went into the locker rooms.

Canisius continued to hold that momentum in the second half, opening with seven straight points to take an early four-point lead in the period at 39-35 after Scott Hitchon's three pointer. Hitchon seemed to come up with a three-point shot every time the Griffs needed it, netting five of his seven field goals from behind the arc. The home team would pull ahead by eight points after Jibreel Faulkner connected with a jumper that made the score 51-43 with 13 minutes on the clock.

The Stags rallied to tie the game with eight consecutive points, the last of which came from Aidas Kavaliauskas who made a three pointer that knotted the game at 51-51 with 10 minutes on the clock. But once again, Hitchon found the bottom of the net from long range to stop the Fairfield run and regain a narrow three-point lead. The Griffs once again secured an eight-point lead later in the game at 64-56 with under four minutes left to play.

The lead seemed insurmountable with 1:35 on the clock, seeing the Stags down by seven points with the ball. Taj Benning connected on a corner three pointer and Neftali Alvarez followed with a pair of free throws on the next possession to make it a one possession game at 70-68 with 20 seconds remaining. Canisius guard Malik Johnson made both ends of a one-and-one situation to push the deficit to four points with 12 seconds left.

The remarkable part of the Stags' performance came from the fact that Coach Johnson used a seven-man rotation since flu-like symptoms limited some of the Stags reserves. Technically, Coach Johnson used eight players as Felix Lemetti earned one minute of play and secured a rebound in his limited appearance. Six of the other seven players in the game for Fairfield played at least 23 minutes, led by Cruz and Alvarez who both played 38 minutes.

"I am really proud of the guys tonight," Coach Johnson said. "Canisius is a team that is really well coached but our guys played them hard and gave us a bounce-back effort from the Monmouth game. I thought there was a lot of good things in terms of execution. But again, it was just that one stretch that got away from us otherwise we might have been on the winning side of this game.  I am really happy with the effort that the players gave tonight."

Fairfield will return to the court on Sunday for a 2 pm game against Niagara University.