Last-second survival: Penguins outlast WSU

January 26, 2014 at 12:07a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown State senior Kendrick Perry walked into Saturday’s postgame press conference, smiled and said, “Sorry for raising y’all’s blood pressure.”

Thanks to 39 minutes and 50 seconds of winning basketball — and 10 seconds of good fortune — the Penguins kept their Horizon League hopes from going on life support, surviving Wright State 68-67 at Beeghly Center.

“We got lucky at the end,” Perry said.

Thanks to a pair of driving layups by DJ Cole and two Ryan Weber free throws, YSU took a 68-64 lead with 19 seconds left, only to watch WSU’s Matt Vest hit a 3-pointer from the right corner to cut the deficit to one with 10.7 seconds remaining.

That’s when things got interesting.

Inbounding the ball from underneath the WSU basket, Karmen Belin tried to find 6-foot-10 center Bobby Hain near the Raiders’ free throw line. But the pass sailed too high and Jerran Young stole it away, calling timeout with 5.8 seconds left.

WSU’s Chrishawn Hopkins then drove on the left side of the lane and tried to hit Matt Vest off a backdoor cut. Cole got his hand on the ball, which tipped up near the hoop and was grabbed by Raider forward JT Yoho, who missed a one-foot tip-in at the buzzer.

“It was all in slow motion, it felt like,” YSU sophomore Ryan Weber said. “I saw the ball come right off my butt to Vest and I was scared out of my mind. I thought he was going to make a layup.

“Luckily, DJ was there to smack it and the ball just went up and Yoho had a good look. The basketball gods were looking out for us tonight.”

Perry scored 18 points on just five field goal attempts — he was 10 of 13 from the line — and Weber tied his career-high with 18 points for YSU (13-9, 4-3), which is tied with Valparaiso for fourth in the conference, a half-game back of Wright State (13-10, 5-3) and Cleveland State (13-9, 5-3).

The top two teams in the Horizon League get byes to the tournament semifinals, while the top three get first-round byes.

“The door’s wide open for us,” Weber said. “We can still get to where we want to go.”

Belin played his best game in weeks, scoring 15 points (albeit on 6 of 16 shooting) with five rebounds and Josh Chojnacki played 20 strong, but mostly stat-free, minutes off the bench when Hain got in foul trouble.

“He gave us a real lift,” YSU coach Jerry Slocum said of Chojnacki. “He battled. He threw his body around. He did a great job.”

AJ Pacher scored 15 points and Vest and Yoho each added 10 for the Raiders, who have lost three straight games at Beeghly Center.

YSU now plays three straight on the road, beginning Friday at Oakland.

When asked if Saturday’s win was a statement game, Perry said, “I think so. Two of our key wins at home were at the defensive end, against Cleveland State [on Jan. 13] and tonight. I said at the beginning of the year we were trying to make defense our staple. With a couple of these past games, I think we proved that.”

Honoring Peters

In honor of former YSU coach Dan Peters, who is battling pancreatic cancer, YSU’s coaches wore lapel pins and purple ribbons — the color for pancreatic cancer awareness. Peters recently took a leave of absence from his job as the University of Akron’s director of basketball operations.

“We’re just pulling for him,” Slocum said. “I’m excited to be able to lift him up a little bit, not only with this but also in our prayers.”