Penguins close out 2010 with Horizon, home win

December 31, 2010 at 12:10a.m.

By Jon moffett

Youngstown

The Youngstown State men’s basketball team entered Thursday’s game with two streaks on the line. The Penguins are undefeated at the Beeghly Center this year. But they had also lost 13-consecutive games within the Horizon League.

Something had to give.

The Penguins survived two last-second efforts by UIC to walk off of Dom Roselli court with a 71-69 victory to close out 2010. And in typical Horizon League fashion, it came down to the very last shot.

“I thought our kids battled all night,” he coach Jerry Slocum said after his team’s sixth home win of the season. “They had some adversity with some foul trouble. But I thought our bench gave us a huge, big-time lift tonight.”

Also coming up huge for the Penguins (6-6, 1-2 Horizon) was junior guard Ashen Ward. At times, it seemed like Ward was filming a how-to video for shooting 3-pointers. The Cleveland native was 7-of-10 from behind the line and finished with a career-high 26 points. Ward came into the game averaging 7.3 points per game.

“I don’t know. I’ve been putting in a lot of work, a lot of extra shots during the [holiday] break and they were just falling today,” he said. “Guys were getting me open, setting a lot of screens for me and they were just falling today.”

Ward had the hot hand for most of the game. He made four shots from long range in the first half and had 14 points at the break.

But it was the entire Penguins team that helped even the record and snap the conference skid. The YSU bench outscored that of UIC by a margin of 23 to eight. In fact, sixth man DuShawn Brooks was second on the team with 11 points. Brooks tied with senior Vytas Sulskis, who is now 14 points away from being No. 20 on the schools’ all-time scorers list.

One of the main reasons the Penguins were able to get the open looks was their ability to move the ball.

Of the 25 field goals made by the Penguins, 19 came off assists. Junior guard Devonte Maymon led the team with six. Classmate Tre Brewer had nine rebounds and sophomore Damian Eargle, a Warren Harding graduate, had three blocks.

The Penguins led by as many as nine points in the first half. But the Flames (5-9, 0-2 Horizon) scraped back to bring it within two at the half.

Conversely, the Penguins never trailed by more than three points. Slocum said it was a testament to his players’ ability to fight back and handle pressure.

“We really [manned] up defensively,” he said. “We really got tough defensively in the last minute and a half and did a really good job. We got some big stops.”

The Penguins hope to open 2011 the same way they closed out this year. The Penguins will host Loyola on New Year’s Day at 1:05 p.m.

General admission tickets will be free.