PITTSBURGH, Pa. – The Washington & Jefferson College men's basketball team traveled to Pittsburgh for its second game in as many days as the Presidents were defeated by a hot-shooting Carnegie Mellon squad 87-70 on Thursday afternoon.
 
W&J falls to 7-4 (2-1 PAC) while CMU moves to 7-2 on the year.
 
CMU matched its season-high scoring output with 78 points behind a career-high 20 point outing from Daniel Weiss. The Tartan's Zach Howarth became the 20^th player in program history to eclipse 1,000 career points in the contest as well.
 
Carnegie Mellon built a 16-point halftime lead as the Tartans led 45-29 through the game's first 20 minutes. A CMU three-pointer extended its advantage to 18 points early in the second half.
 
The Presidents gained some momentum with AJ Blue (Kensington, Md./Sidwell Friends (D.C.)) knocking down a three and CMU committing a foul away from the shot. Given the opportunity to double-dip, the Presidents cashed in with a Zach Queen (Jeannette, Pa./Hempfield Area) layup for a five-point trip.
 
Okikiola Agbale (Pittsburgh, Pa./Shaler) scored from the right block the following trip to make it seven-straight President points as W&J clawed back down 51-39 with 15:46 to play in the second half.
 
CMU's Ethan Miller provided a response for the Tartans, knocking down consecutive threes during an 11-4 Tartan run that extended CMU's lead to 65-45 with under 10 minutes left in regulation.
 
W&J's final push included consecutive threes from Kyran Mitchell (Reading, Pa./Berks Catholic) and Queen and was capped with a steal by Adam Alexander (Gibsonia, Pa./Pine-Richland) setting up a Blue lay-in. The 12-4 run push the Presidents down a dozen (75-63) with just over four minutes left in regulation.
 
The Tartans buried two more threes in the game's final three minutes to push the game out of reach.
 
Blue poured in a season-high 16 points in his first double-digit scoring outing of the season. Agbale added 13 points, Cameron Seemann (Loveland, Ohio/Archbishop Moeller) had 11 and Queen chipped in with 10. 
 
W&J returns to Presidents' Athletic Conference action on Jan. 4 at Westminster.