ARLINGTON, Va. -- The Marymount University men's basketball team went blow-for-blow with Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology on Sunday afternoon, but the Saints came up just short against the Fightin' Engineers in a 65-60 defeat.

The Saints won the turnover battle in the championship game of the Pablo Coto Tip-Off tournament, as they forced Rose-Hulman into 16 turnovers. MU surrendered just eight turnovers and finished the game with nine steals. While Marymount turned Rose-Hulman's miscues into 15 points, the Fightin' Engineers prowess on the glass loomed largely. Rose-Hulman ended the contest with a 47-33 advantage in rebounds, which resulted in 21 second-chance points.

After some early back-and-forth, Rose-Hulman managed to open an 11-point lead on the heels of a jumper from Samvit Ram with 8:02 left in the first half. The Saints answered with a 9-2 run, which featured five points from Zamir Clifton, to cut the deficit to 23-19. While Rose-Hulman knocked down a pair of free throws to take a 28-21 advantage, Wyatt Hockenberry and Montell Cooper netted the final two scores of the opening frame to pull Marymount within two, 28-26, at the end of the first half.

The second half started relatively quiet, as neither side scored until Ram knocked down a three-pointer for the visitors a little over three minutes into the frame. After Rose-Hulman added a field goal, Hockenberry halted the Fightin' Engineers momentum. The sophomore got three points the old-fashioned way, as he finished strong through contact and made the free throw to make it a 33-29 game. Cooper went coast-to-coast on the next possession, which pulled the Saints back within two.

Despite the Saints' uptick in offense, Rose-Hulman matched them step for step, and eventually built an 11-point lead at 52-41 with a little over six minutes left to play. Marymount launched a furious comeback attempt behind a chaos-inducing full-court press. As time wound down, Xavier Reaves nailed a corner three off of a feed from Cooper, that cut the deficit to three. That was as close as the Saints came, however, as the Fightin' Engineers knocked down a pair of late free throws to close out the contest.

Cooper led the way for the Saints with an all-around effort. The sophomore tallied a game-high-tying 18 points to go along with eight rebounds, five assists, one steal, and one block. Reaves posted double-figures in the fourth-consecutive contest to open the year with 17 points and nine boards. As a result, he was named to the All-Tournament Team. Clifton rounded out MU's double-digit scorers with 13 points off of the bench.

Marymount heads to Bridgewater College for its next contest on Tuesday, November 23. Tip-off is scheduled for 4:00 p.m.