YSU hangs tough

Penguins survive late Loyola scare

By CHUCK HOUSTEAU

Vindicator CORRESPONDENT

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State’s DeAndre Mays scored a career high 30 points but it was Dallas Blocker’s only three points of the night that saved the day in the Penguins’ 71-67 win over Loyola in Horizon League action at Beeghly Center.

With the Penguins clinging to a one-point lead, 68-67, late in the game, Blocker grabbed a loose ball off a block of teammate Sirlester Martin’s shot and drove to the basket.

Blocker’s layup and ensuing foul shot with 9.3 seconds left in the contest sealed the Penguins’ second straight home Horizon League win.

“I thought we showed our mettle tonight in terms of how hard we played,” said YSU coach Jerry Slocum. “Obviously we don’t like the turnovers at the end that brought it back to being a game when we had [the game] in hand.”

YSU (7-8, 2-4) had the contest seemingly under control after Mays knocked in a free throw with 2:28 left that gave the Penguins an eight-point lead, 65-57.

The Ramblers got back in the contest by forcing Youngstown into two consecutive turnovers and scored eight straight points to knot the game at 65-65 with 1:15 left.

Mays helped the Penguins regroup by taking control and scored on a driving layup with 54.5 left. Mays was fouled on the play and made the free throw for a three-point lead.

After Loyola’s Walt Gibler made two free throws with 38 seconds left to cut the YSU lead to 68-67, the Penguins ran some clock before getting a shot down low by Martin that was blocked and set up Blocker’s heroics.

“Our kids really battled these last two games,” Slocum said. “Everybody was walking around from a week ago saying, ‘Who are you?’ I think you could see tonight who we are.

“That’s a physical team that we played against tonight,” Slocum said of the Ramblers. “That’s probably as physical team as there is in this league and we overcame a lot of things in this game.

“The thing I’m most proud of was when it got to 65-65, we didn’t wilt. We didn’t feel sorry for ourselves for those couple of turnovers.”

Mays said the team didn’t panic when Loyola (11-5, 2-5) came back to tie the game late.

When asked what he was thinking at that point, he said, “We just can’t turnover the ball anymore. We kept talking about how we had to get the ball up past half court and get the bucket.”

That’s exactly what Mays did as he drove to the hoop for the go-ahead basket and free throw.

Mays made 11 of 21 shots from the field and was 4 of 6 from the three-point line for his career-high night.

The senior guard made 20 of his 30 points in the second half — more than 50 percent of his team’s point total in the second half.

Kelvin Bright also had an outstanding game, scoring 16 points while Martin tallied 14 points and grabbed seven rebounds.

The trio scored all but three of YSU’s points (Blocker had the rest) in the second half.

The two teams battled almost evenly throughout the first half before YSU grabbed a 32-31 lead on a basket by Martin at the buzzer that took referees nearly six minutes to determine was good.

The Ramblers were led by Terrence Hill who scored all of his team-high 18 points in the second half. Hill was instrumental in Loyola’s last minute comeback.

YSU returns to action next week on the road at Valparaiso on Thursday and Butler on Saturday.