Gist Reaches 1,000 Points; Bears Top Lehman

BROOKLYN, NY – Senior Justin Gist (Brooklyn, NY/Newsome) scored his 1,000th career point netting a game-high 23 points leading the St. Joseph's College (Brooklyn) men's basketball team to a 77-67 victory over Lehman College on Wednesday night, the second victory over the CUNY foe in five days.

The game would have a different tone than the last meeting as St. Joseph's remained in control for most of the contest, trailing for only a few minutes and by not more than three points.

Junior Jan Rogowski (Woodside, NY/St. John's Prep) got the Bears off to a fast start and early 19-9 lead draining four trifectas in the opening six minutes. As the Bears shooting cooled off, Lehman got back into the game and took a 27-24 lead with 8:15 remaining.

But then Gist heated up, erasing the deficit with a triple starting off a 13 point burst in four-and-a-half minutes, capped by his milestone point -- a fastbreak layup at the 1:12 mark after a steal and pass from Ian Duff (Jamaica, NY/Christ the King). Gist finished the half with 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting and helped the Bears build another 10 point advantage, leading 38-28 at the break.

The second half was all St. Joseph's as they maintained a double digit lead for most of the period, building as much as a 16 point advantage on two occasions. Lehman made a late push to get back into the game trimming the Bears' lead to six points on an Anthony Rodriguez layup at the 3:48 mark, but three Lightning fouled out and St. Joseph's managed to hold off the surge and bring the lead back up to double digits from the free throw line.

The Bears were happy to return home shooting 10-for-23 (44 percent) from behind the arc for the game, surpassing their total three-pointers over their last three road games (8), and finishing with 26-for-63 (41 percent) shooting overall.

Gist racked up his 23 points on 9-of-18 shooting, including 3-for-5 from three-point land, becoming the first Bear to join the exclusive scoring club since Jon Matzelle last season. Rogowski finished with 14 points and seven rebounds. Making his third start of the season, David Ortiz (Brooklyn, NY/Christ the King) scored nine points and dished out a game-high nine assists for the near double-double. Antoine Forehand (New York, NY/Rice) added 12 points and David Louison (Brooklyn, NY/St. Edmund's Prep) grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds.

Lehman (6-7, 2-0 CUNYAC) also saw three score in double-figures, led by Kelvin Gil's 15 points. George Nimmons added 13. The Bears limited leading scorer Mathias Raggiotto to 10 points and nine rebounds, after posting a 20 point, 14 rebound in the earlier meeting.

St. Joseph's (6-7, 1-0 HVMAC) looks to return to the .500 mark hosting Polytechnic Institute of NYU on Monday, January 9th. The Fighting Blue Jays are led by first-year head coach and former Bear player and assistant coach, Nolan Adams '04. Tip-off is at 7:30 p.m. at Brooklyn Technical High School.