Throughout the course of a season a team that knocks down its free throws in crunch time usually wins its fair share of games.

Timely shooting helps a little bit too.

On Tuesday night the Lightning was the beneficiary of both in earning a hard fought 73-61 victory over the host Beavers to improve to 2-3 on the season.

After a first half that had Lehman leading 35-28 through 20 minutes, the Lightning and Beavers settled in for a back and forth affair that featured eight combined ties and lead changes over the course of the second half's first 12 minutes.

With the game knotted at 49-49 with 8:05 to play, Lehman's sixth man spark plug George Nimmons absorbed contact, converted a layup and knocked down the ensuing free throw to complete a huge three-point play to give the Lightning the 52-49 lead. An empty possession by the Beavers was followed by a three-pointer by Samuel Batista to put Lehman up 55-49. Two free throws and a layup by Jonathan DeJesus stretched the lead to 59-49 in favor of the Lightning.

A three-pointer by the Beavers' Brendan Barile cut the lead to 59-52 with 4:33 remaining, but it was quickly answered by Batista, who canned a triple of his own to boost the lead back to 10. From that point on, with the Beavers in the penalty, the Lightning converted seven of its final 10 free throws to ice the game. All told Lehman shot 25 free throws to CCNY's 13 charity attempts.

Junior Samuel Batista pumped in a team-high 21 points on an efficient 8-for-13 shooting in the win for a Lightning team that went 11 deep on the night. The only other scorer to record double digit points for Lehman was Nimmons, who came off the bench to tally 13. DeJesus had his double-double streak snapped at four games, though he did contribute eight points and eight rebounds, including a big layup with 1:17 remaining that extended Lehman's lead to 66-59. Senior Alain De La Cruz nearly pulled off the triple-double, finishing with nine points, nine assists and seven rebounds.

Lehman returns to action on Friday when it travels downtown for another conference tussle, this time with the Hunter Hawks.