Youngstown State and Wright State Enter New Year with Wins

Men’s Basketball Scoreboard (Dec. 29)
Youngstown State 85, South Dakota 59
Wright State 46, Bowling Green 43
East Tennessee State 73, Valparaiso 62

Youngstown State 85, South Dakota 59
The Youngstown State men's basketball team used an impressive start against South Dakota on Sunday afternoon at the Beeghly before cruising past the Coyotes 85-59. YSU led by 19 just over eight minutes into the contest and never looked back.

Kamren Belin finished with a team-high 21 points, Shawn Amiker had 20, including 15 in the second half, Kendrick Perry had 17 and Bobby Hain had 10. Sixteen of Perry's 17 points and all of Hain's points came in the first half. Amiker was 8-of-9 from the field, 4-of-5 from the line and hauled down seven rebounds in 18 minutes of action.

YSU (9-6) opened the game on fire making 10 of its first 13 shots to jump out to a 27-8 lead just over eight minutes into the contest. The ballgame was tied at four in the early going before the Penguins went on a 15-2 run to seize control by taking a 19-6 lead just over five minutes into the afternoon.

With 8:30 left in the half, YSU led 32-12 before reeling off 13 straight points, highlighted by a steal and emphatic Perry slam dunk at the 5:08 mark which put the Penguins on top 45-12.

YSU took a 51-15 lead, the Penguins' largest advantage of the first half, with 2:26 left as Ryan Weber connected on a 3-pointer.

YSU played a complete first half making 60 percent of its field-goal attempts (18-of-30), 50 percent from behind the 3-point arc (7-of-14), 90.9 percent from the free-throw line (10-of-11) while helping hold USD to just 26.9 percent from the field. The Penguins had just three turnovers while USD had 12 in the opening stanza.

Perry had 16, Belin 13 and Hain had 10. Hain scored eight of his 10 points in the 4:36 as he, Perry and Belin combined to score the first 21 YSU points.
Belin opened the second half draining a 3-pointer to give the Penguins their biggest lead of the contest at 38. But the Coyotes (3-9) made a run to get within 62-36 at one point before YSU extended the lead back to 35 following an Amiker basket at the 10:06 mark of the half.

From that point, YSU emptied the bench as more than 11 players saw seven minutes or more of action.

For the game, the Penguins shot 48.4 percent making 30-of-62 attempts and went 10-of-24 from behind the 3-point arc. USD shot 34.5 percent (20-of-58) for the game as Trey Norris had a team-high 16 points.

The win improves the Penguins to 6-1 at home this season.

Wright State 46, Bowling Green 43
The Wright State men's basketball team led by as much as 14 in the second half, but had to hold off a Bowling Green rally in the final minutes before defeating the Falcons 46-43 Sunday afternoon at WSU's Nutter Center.

The two teams were tied five times in the first half before the Raiders went up 18-14 on two Miles Dixon foul shots followed by a Jerran Young jumper at the 5:50 mark.  Layups from Reggie Arceneaux and Kendall Griffin extended the margin to 22-17 and WSU went into the break with a 26-19 advantage on a Matt Vest fast-break score.

Despite missing all 10 three-point attempts in the opening 20 minutes, Wright State still shot 38 percent from the field compared to 36 percent for Bowling Green, who was just one of seven behind the arc.

The Raiders opened the second half with a 7-3 run, five of those coming from AJ Pacher, and held their biggest lead of the game at 38-24 on a Pacher three-point play with 11:23 remaining.

The margin was still in double figures at 42-31 on a Dixon basket with 8:33 to play before the Falcons used an 8-1 run to cut the deficit to four.  A later Richaun Holmes three-point play made it 45-42 at the 2:18 mark and it was a two-point game as Holmes connected on one of two at the line with 1:46 left.

Bowling Green had a chance to tie the game in the final minute, but a Vest steal resulted in Dixon hitting the first of two free throws with 9.2 seconds remaining.  Dixon missed the second, but a three-point attempt by Holmes from the left wing to force overtime went long as time expired.

The Falcons shot 53 percent in the second half to end up at 44 percent overall compared to 37 percent for WSU.  The Raiders also missed all 13 of their three-point attempts, marking the first time that Wright State had not made a three in a game since going 0 for 8 on February 2, 2006 against Milwaukee.

The Raiders, though, had 10 more field goal attempts thanks in part to forcing 21 turnovers while committing 13 and collecting 11 offensive rebounds and went 10 of 17 at the foul line while Bowling Green was seven of 14.

Pacher had a near double-double of 14 points and nine rebounds to lead the way for WSU while Dixon had 13 off the bench.

Holmes paced Bowling Green (6-6) with a double-double of 15 points and 10 rebounds while Spencer Parker had 11.

East Tennessee State 73, Valparaiso 62
The Valparaiso men’s basketball team sliced a 23-point deficit early in the second half down to seven points on two occasions, but could get no closer as East Tennessee State earned a 73-62 victory over the Crusaders Sunday evening in Johnson City, Tenn.

Coming out of the locker room trailing 42-21, the Crusaders started the second half with a lineup of LaVonte Dority, Lexus Williams, Alec Peters, David Chadwick and Vashil Fernandez.  The quintet would surrender the first two points of the half on a pair of free throws just over a minute in before putting together a run.

The spurt started with a dunk by Fernandez off a feed from Williams.  Two possessions later, the freshman point guard nailed a 3-pointer and followed the next possession with a driving layup to cut the deficit to 44-28, forcing an ETSU timeout.

The stoppage scarcely slowed down the Valpo run, as out of the timeout, Chadwick came up with a steal and Dority finished the ensuing possession with a basket at the rim, followed by a Chadwick turnaround jumper to make it 44-32.  Two possessions later, Peters tallied a steal and hit Dority on the break, who completed an old-fashioned 3-point play to cut the margin to single digits at 44-35 with 13:19 to play, closing out a 14-0 run.

The Buccaneers scored on each of their next three possessions to push the lead back to 13 points, but Peters drained a triple to keep Valpo in the game and Williams found Fernandez for another inside basket.  Following an ETSU 3-pointer, the Crusaders drew fouls on each of their next two trips, with Dority and Peters both converting their pairs of free throws to bring the Crusaders within 54-47 with 8:48 to go.

The lead would hover between nine and 11 points for the next few minutes before a layup by Jubril Adekoya made it 60-53 with 5:17 to play.  ETSU scored the next seven points over a span of 3:30 to stretch the lead back out to 14 points, however, and the Crusaders were unable to move any closer than the final margin in the endgame.

Valpo scored on each of its first two offensive trips on Sunday on layups from Dority and Adekoya, but would then go without a field goal for more than seven minutes.  ETSU would lead by double figures at the first time at the 10:00 mark, going ahead 18-8.  The Bucs’ Jalen Riley scored eight straight points over a span of just 1:14 to give ETSU a 29-12 lead, and after Dority drained a 3-pointer to make it 29-18 with 4:15 to go in the half, ETSU closed the first half on a 13-3 run.

Dority led the Crusaders with 14 points, but was just 1-of-6 from deep as Valpo shot just 4-of-19 (21.1%) as a team from downtown.  Peters scored 13 points and came up one board shy of a double-double with nine rebounds.

Meanwhile, Fernandez posted his second career double-double, finishing with 10 points, a career-high 14 rebounds and three blocked shots.  The junior played the entire second half and posted 10 points and nine rebounds in the second half alone.  The efforts of Fernandez and Peters led Valpo to a 45-28 edge on the glass over the Bucs.  Williams tied for game-high honors with five assists.

Riley led East Tennessee State (7-6) with 19 points off the bench, while Rashawn Rembert added 16 points.  ETSU shot 47.6% (10-of-21) from beyond the 3-point line and scored 27 points off 24 Crusader turnovers, tallying 14 steals, led by five from A.J. Merriweather.