ONEONTA, N.Y. – The Penn State Altoona men's basketball team traveled to New York to compete in the Michael A. Freilich Classic on Saturday night, where they lost to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 100-69.

Rensselaer (2-0) played their way to a 44-36 halftime lead after a fast-paced first half, then went up by as many as 18 points in the second half. Penn State Altoona (1-2) tried to challenge the Engineers, but Rensselaer proved too much for the Lions, scoring 56 points to win 100-69.

"Tonight was a tale of two halves," said Penn State Altoona head coach David McGreal. "We played pretty well in the first half, obviously at the start and then finishing the half pretty well on a nice little run. But in the second half, everything we did correctly in the first half we did not do in the second half. RPI is too good of a team, and they took advantage of every one of our mistakes on offense and defense."

Kaden Claar (Portage, PA/Portage) and Elliot Johansson (Stockholm, Sweden/Tibble Gymnasium) scored 14 points each, leading the team in scoring. Mason Kargo (Portage, PA/Portage) led the team in assists with three, and Nehemiah Frye (King George, VA/King George) led in rebounds with six while scoring eight points.

Rensselaer's Andrew Deppe led the team in scoring with 16 points, while Yechiel Stewart added 14 points for the Engineers.

Penn State Altoona surged to a nine-point lead in the beginning of the first half through baskets by Braelen Cage (Lorton, VA/Hayfield Secondary), Frye, Michael Baskerville (Damascus, MD/Damascus), Claar, and Kargo.

Rensselaer bounced back, scoring 13 points to take an 18-16 lead. The final five minutes of the first half would see both teams put more points on the scoreboard. Rensselaer scored 31.8% of their points in the final five minutes, while Penn State Altoona scored 27.7% of their points in the same period of time.

The Engineers started the second half on the front foot, going on a 12-4 run in the opening four minutes of the half to make it 56-40. After an even stretch in scoring, Rensselaer started to pull away with nine minutes remaining in the game. The Engineers went on a 9-0 run before Johannson scored two free throws to make it 83-60.

Throughout the game, Renasslaer had the advantage in field goal percentage (58.3% to Penn State Altoona's 42.9%) and three-point percentage (48.1% to 33.3%). Penn State Altoona also turned the ball over more, 16 times to Renasslaer's six.

"We had a great day today visiting the Hall of Fame. We're going to regroup, as it looks like we're going to have to play the home team in the consolation round tomorrow," said McGreal. "It'd be awesome to leave here with a split."

The Penn State Altoona men's basketball team will continue competing in the Michael A. Freilich Classic tomorrow, November 16. The Lions will take on host school SUNY-Oneonta at 3 p.m. in the consolation game of the classic.