The nationally-ranked St. John Fisher College men's basketball program won the Empire 8 Conference Championship on Saturday, as the top-seed Cardinals came away a 77-62 win over No. 2 seed Alfred University.

With the win, Fisher, ranked No. 1 in the NCAA Division III East Region and No. 24 nationally, earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship.  Fisher (23-4) will find out Monday who and where it will play in the 62-team national tournament.

Stefan Bock was selected as the Championship's Most Valuable Player. The senior scored a career-high 25 points, and on the defensive end, held Alfred's Tyler Seelman, who was averaging 15.8 points, to just five on 2-of-7 shooting.

Junior Chaz Lott was named to the All-Championship Team. Lott tallied 10 points, seven rebounds and a career-high 12 assists.

The game looked like it was going to be a blowout early on, as the Cardinals raced to 26-9 lead before the 10-minute mark.

The Saxons (19-8), however, refused to go away and trimmed the Fisher-lead down to six at 34-28 going into the locker room.

Fisher pushed its lead back to double-digits at 40-30 early in the second half, but the Saxons chipped away and took their first lead of the night at 47-46 on a 3-pointer with just over 11 minutes to go.

With just over eight minutes to go, Fisher took the lead for good a driving layup from Bock.  The Saxons trailed by just four with under four minutes to go, but the Cardinals delivered 3-pointers – one from Tyler Hart and one from Optimystik Kinard – on back-to-back possessions to put Fisher up 10 with 90 seconds left.

Fisher shot 55.3% from the floor for the game, including 6-of-12 from 3-point range.

Kinard and Hart each finished with 11 points, while Keegan Ryan totaled 12 points.

The victory marks Fisher's first Empire 8 title since 2006-2007 and will be the Cardinals' first trip to NCAAs since 2010.