SWARTHMORE, Pa. – The Ithaca College men's basketball posted a thrilling, comeback overtime victory over Babson College, 94-88, in a NCAA First Round matchup inside Tarble Pavilion at Swarthmore College on Friday evening. With the victory, Ithaca improves its winning streak to 12 straight and is now 24-5 on the season. It is also the Bombers' first NCAA victory since 2012-13.

Ithaca trailed for a majority of regulation, but senior Sebastian Alderete scored on a layup with 3.8 seconds left to tie the game at 78-78 and send the opening round matchup into overtime.

In the extra session, Babson scored the first basket early on, but senior Riley Thompson made a pair of free throws at the 3:44 mark to tie it back up at 80-80. After 1:30 of scoreless play, sophomore Skylar Sinon drilled a 3-pointer to vault the Bombers back ahead and then hit another three-ball just 45 seconds later to extend Ithaca's advantage to 86-80.

Babson managed to get to within three points at 89-86 with 19 seconds left. The Bombers ended the contest by going 4-for-5 at the line the rest of the way. Ithaca attempted five free throws during regulation but went to the line 12 times in the extra five minutes, making 10 of those attempts.

Sinon paced the Bombers with 27 points on 8-of-20 shooting and netted 11 of his points in overtime. Sinon also pulled down nine rebounds with four assists and three steals.

Thompson scored 26 points on 10-of-22 from the floor, to go along with three steals and three assists. Alderete and senior Jake Mitchell also reached double figures in points with 16 and 13. Alderete was 7-for-12 from the field with nine boards and four assists, while Mitchell was 6-for-10 with five rebounds.

Sophomore Alex Barron added eight points on a perfect 4-for-4 performance and freshman Jack Stern made his return to the lineup and scored four points in 10 minutes. Despite on scoring a point, sophomore Zach Warech ripped down seven rebounds.

Babson jumped out to a 5-0 lead within the opening minute of action, but the Bombers would tie things up at 10-10 with 15:19 remaining in the half. Senior Jake Mitchell put in a layup to establish the first deadlock of the contest.

About a minute later, senior Riley Thompson laid one in to give the Bombers their first lead of the contest at 14-12. IC would go on to hold leads of 16-14 and 18-16, but after a bucket and 3-pointer from Babson at the 12:11 mark flipped the advantage back to the Beavers, 21-18, they would not relinquish the lead for the rest of the half.

The Beavers continued their run to a 25-18 difference, only to watch Ithaca come back to within a point at 25-24 with 8:53 to go as Sinon connected from distance. Babson then went back up by six points at 32-26 with seven minutes to go, and over the next five minutes the disparity fluctuated between two and four points.

Babson then scored four straight to push its edge back out to eight points at 42-24 with 1:13 on the clock, but Ithaca closed out the half on a 5-0 run behind a 3-pointer from Mitchell and a layup from Thompson with two seconds remaining.

In the second half, Babson opened up with a 9-2 run to build a 10-point lead at 51-41 with 16:31 to go. From there, the Beavers added a bucket to extend their advantage to 65-53 with 12:43 left in regulation.

Over the next five minutes, Ithaca went on a 14-3 run to pull to within a point at 68-67. During that stretch, Barron scored six of his eight points in the contest. Babson maintained its lead until Sinon connected from beyond the arc to knot the score up at 76-76 with 2:25 to go. The Beavers scored a minute later, but Alderete sent the game to overtime with his game-tying layup.

The Bombers outrebounded Babson, 45-32, and pulled down 15 offensive rebounds. Ithaca shot 37-for-77 (48.1-percent) from the field, including 18-for-34 (52.9%) in the second half. IC only made six 3-pointers in the contest, but two of those came in overtime.

Ithaca will play in the second round tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. against either No. 1 Swarthmore or Brooklyn.