Troy, NY – Needing a win to sweep the season series, the Clarkson University Men’s Basketball team had to settle for a split against Rensselaer as the Golden Knights came up short, 59-53, in Liberty League action Friday night.

The Golden Knights fell to 10-9 overall and 4-5 in the Liberty League, while Rensselaer picked up a key win to improve to 12-6 overall and 4-4 in conference games. Clarkson travels to play Vassar on Saturday needing a victory to get out of its current rut.

Neither team came out strong offensively in the first half, as Clarkson was the first to double figures at 11:45 after a 3-pointer from Tyler Barron (Burlington, NY). From there, Rensselaer went very cold on offense, going scoreless for nearly four minutes. Unfortunately, the Knights didn’t take too much advantage of the opportunity pushing their two-point lead to eight points at the 5:50 mark (21-13). That would prove costly, as the Knights held a seven-point lead with four minutes remaining before Rensselaer ended the half on a 12-1 run, giving the Engineers a four-point advantage (28-24) at the break.

Eight different players contributed points for the Knights in the first half, led by Jonathan Hood (Cortlandt Manor, NY) with five points. Senior Keith Murray (Queens, NY) also added 4 points and 6 rebounds for Clarkson. Ricky Philatre scored eight points early for RPI and Dan Martin contributed seven points.

Though the teams would trade points for the first 10 minutes of the second half, the offensive flow remained disjointed. Rensselaer would push its lead to six points with just over nine minutes remaining, but the lead was hardly a secure one, as Clarkson cut it down to two after a pair of free throws from Hood with 5:58 to go. Three free throws in the next minute returned the Engineers to a two-possession lead.

Rensselaer was able to pull away despite its own offensive woes as Clarkson went more than six minutes without a field goal, missing seven shots and turning the ball over twice before Hood made a lay up with 1:39 to go, bringing the Knights to within seven points (55-48). The end to Clarkson’s tough shooting run came too late as the team couldn’t close the gap in the waning moments.

Clarkson trailed in rebounds (38-30) and made just four 3-pointers in 19 attempts while shooting 42 percent inside the arc.

Hood provided Clarkson with a double-double, scoring 10 points to go along with 11 rebounds. Elson Pickering (Brooklyn, NY) led the team with 11 points.  Philatre finished with 11 to lead RPI.