ITHACA, N.Y.. -- Cornell held Elmira scoreless for nearly 12 minutes spanning the two halves as part of a 25-0 run and cruised past the Soaring Eagles 70-33 on Monday evening at Newman Arena. The win sends the Big Red (3-10) into Ivy League play with a two-game winning streak. 

Junior Riley Voss has 14 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals in just his second collegiate start and Cornell held Elmira to 25 percent shooting overall, including 15 percent after halftime, while forcing 22 turnovers. Josh Warren was also in double figures (10 points, four rebounds), while five other players had at least seven points. Sophomore Kobe Dickson had nine points and four boards, Greg Dolan chipped in seven points, three steals, two rebounds and two assists and Bryan Knapp, Thurston McCarty and Marcus Filien added seven apiece. Terrance McBride had a game-high seven of the Big Red's 22 assists to just nine turnovers. The home team shot 47 percent from the floor, including 56 percent in the first 20 minutes.

Shawn Backus led Elmira with 13 points and three rebounds, while Rashaad Nurse had eight points and seven boards. No other Elmira player had more than three points. The visitors led 6-4 early, then cut a double-digit deficit down to 26-20 with 5:48 left when Backus made a pair of free throws.

From there, it was all Cornell.

The Big Red closed the first half on a 17-0 run highlighted by eight points from Voss and five more by Dickson to go into the locker room with a comfortable 43-20 lead.

Cornell put up the first eight points of the second half to build its lead to 51-20 five minutes into the second half and never looked back. The advantage grew to as much as 41 in the second half as the Big Red threw down highlight dunks by Marcus Filien to Thurston McCarty in the final minutes to close out the win.

The Big Red had 12 steals and six blocked shots, outscored the Soaring Eagles 40-12 in the paint and had decisive edges in scoring off the bench (31-9), off turnovers (24-10) and in transition (25-2). It limited Elmira to 3-of-16 from 3-point range, making opponents just 3-for-26 from beyond the arc in the last two contests.


   

First Half

• Cornell got the game off to a flying start when Josh Warren won the tip to Terrance McBride, who zipped a pass to a streaking Dean Noll, making his first collegiate start, for a basket just three seconds into the game.
• The teams traded the lead, with Shawn Backus scoring the first six for Elmira to put the Soaring Eagles up 6-4 four minutes in.
• A Riley Voss 3-pointer and a feed by the senior to Noll for a layup put the Big Red up 9-6 at the first media timeout and for good in the game.
• Josh Warren scored six straight to build the lead to 16-8 with 13:42 to play in the half.
• Elmira scratched back to 26-20 after trailing by as many as 10 when Backus hit a pair of free throws with 5:48 to play, but that was the Soaring Eagles' last score of the half ... and for quite awhile.
• Cornell closed on a 17-0 run to break the game wide open, starting with a Voss 3-pointer, part of his eight points in the final six minutes of action.
• Voss was the lone double figure scorer for the Big Red at the half with 11 points, while Backus had 10 for Elmira.
• The Soaring Eagles missing nine of its final 10 shots of the half and hit just 35 percent in the first 20 minutes while turning it over 11 times.
• Cornell outscored Elmira 26-6 in the paint and 16-0 in transition in the first 20 minutes.

Second Half

• Eight straight points by Cornell to open the second half soared the lead to 31 points, and Elmira never recovered.
• When Quintel Clements scored his only basket of the game with 13:50 remaining in the game, that snapped a streak of 11:58 without a point and 13:38 without a made field goal.
• Both teams substituted liberally in the second half, with a number of highlight-reel plays by the Big Red coming in the final stretch.
• Freshman Jordan Jones blocked a shot on one end, raced the length of the court and missed a free throw, but it was followed up by classmate Marcus Filien for the basket,
• On the next Elmira possession, Filien knocked the ball away for a steal, got it to Jones who gave it right back for an alley-oop to energize the crowd and push the lead to 62-29.
• After another Soaring Eagle miss, Thurston McCarty threw one down in transition after nice find by Filien on the break,
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Next Up

• New York Ivy League rivals Cornell and Columbia begin their annual home-and-home series when the teams meet on Saturday, Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. at Levien Gymnasium to kick off conference play. 
• The contest will be broadcast on ESPN+. 
• The Lions lead the all-time series 130-102 dating back to the first meeting between the programs in January 1903. 
• Dating back to 2010, the Lions lead the series 12-8, though Cornell has gone 8-6 in New York City over the last 14 years.