Box Score PALATINE, IL-  The Harper College men's basketball team battled to a tough 88-81 overtime loss against the Olive-Harvey Panthers last night.

The Panthers got out to an early 5-0 lead before a free throw from Corin Daniel and a layup from Joe Gatziolis made the score 5-3 in the first 3 minutes of the game.  After a Panther basket, Jesse Young would take a pass from Gatziolis and hit a three pointer to bring the score within one.  Olive-Harvey would then extend the lead to 12-7 before the Hawks went on a seven-point swing featuring back to back layups from Gatziolis and a three from Daniel to make the score 13-12 Hawks.  Jesse Young would score the next 5 for Harper that included a strong layup through traffic and converted the three-point play. 

The Panthers would chip away to 20-18 before Michael Petrella set up Nico Collazo for a three.  Collazo would be fouled on the shot and hit the free throw for a four-point play and a 24-18 Hawk lead with 7 minutes to go in the half.  Each team would continue to trade baskets before the Panthers made it a one point game with 3:21 remaining.  After a Daniel free throw, Olive-Harvey tied the game and took the lead with back to back layups with just under 2 minutes left.  Tony Ziccardi made a great steal and finished a layup at the other end and Daniel followed it up with another layup to put the Hawks up 33-31.  However, the Panthers would go on to score 6 points in the last minute and the Hawks found themselves down at the half 37-33.

After falling behind by as many as 8 in the first five minutes, the Hawks clawed back after back to back baskets from Gatziolis, a three from Ziccardi, and another three from Domminic Canzoneri to tie the game at 47-47 with just under 13 minutes to go in the second half. Ziccardi's speed and defense would come into play again as he took another steal for a layup to give Harper their first lead of the half.   Another Olive-Harvey run would see the Hawks behind by 3 and then 5 before some nice team play on both ends got the score back to 60-60 with 6:30 to go.  The teams would flip-flop between leads and ties before Ziccardi hit Jesse Young who knocked down an 18 footer to tie the game at 72 with a minue left.  After a Panther layup, the Hawks had 36 seconds to tie or go ahead.  Gatziolis got to the rim and was blocked but Ziccardi was there on the offensive glass.  His shot was also missed but this time Gatziolis was there but was blocked again.  Ziccardi got the rebound, dished it out to Gatziolis, who then hit Daniel for a layup to tie the game at 74 and head into overtime.

Young got the scoring started in the 5 minute extra period after a couple offensive rebounds.  Olive-Harvey would score the next two times down the court thanks to some offensive rebounding of their own.  Free throws by Michael Petrella and Corin Daniel would give the Hawks a 79-78 lead with 3:24 to go in the overtime period.  Once again, the Panthers would score the next two times down and Harper was down 82-80 after a Gatziolis free throw.  However, the Hawks were only able to score once more throughout the remainder of the game as the Panthers got hot at the right time and hit their last 4 shots to make the final score 88-81 Olive-Harvey.

Jesse Young led all scorers with 25 points and also chipped in 10 rebounds for a double-double.  Joe Gatziolis finished with 19 points and a game-high 7 assists.  As a team, the Hawks shot 39% from the field but only went 14-24 from the free-throw line.

The Hawks (0-2) will now travel to Iowa City to take on Ellsworth Community College at 8pm Friday and North Iowa Community College on Saturday at 2pm.