Oakland handles YSU despite two career nights

February 3, 2017 at 12:10a.m.

YSU vs Oakland

YOUNGSTOWN

Isaiah Brock’s double-double led four Oakland players in double figures and a decided height advantage helped the Golden Grizzlies to a 90-76 victory over Youngstown State in Horizon League action Thursday night at Beeghly Center.

Jalen Hayes and Nick Daniels each scored 21 points, Martez Walker added 17 and Brock had 16 points and 18 rebounds Oakland used a 45-26 rebound advantage to improve to 17-7 overall and 7-4 in the league.

“I was very disappointed in our effort. This was the first game in a long time that I feel like we didn’t play with energy or any passion,” Penguins head coach Jerry Slocum said. “We didn’t play with any juice.”

Francisco Santiago and Devin Haygood were two Penguins, however, who brought their “A” games as Santiago rippled the nets for a game-high 26 points on 11- of-18 shooting while Haygood scored a season- and career high 21 points, including 14 in the first half.

“Dev did a good job. He’s really matured and grown all year into a solid basketball player,” Slocum said. “I was proud of his effort but again, we just had mental lapses all the way around. We didn’t communicate through some of our switches. We ran after the ball when there were two guys on the ball. I thought we played sub-par, but Devin and Francisco did a really good job tonight. They played well.”

Santiago scored YSU’s first nine points of the game, his first seven helping the Penguins to an early 7-4 advantage.

A 12-0 run, keyed by Hayes’ seven points and six points from Walker, then opened a 16-7 margin for the Golden Grizzlies and marked the last time that the Penguins (10-14, 4-7) led in the game.

A three-point play by Haygood at 6:34 pulled the Penguins to within 28-19 and after Haygood’s back-to-back buckets at the 1:18 mark, he helped cut the deficit to 36-33. It was the closest they could get the rest of the way as Oakland opened a 42-37 halftime lead.

Oakland head coach Greg Kampe, now in his 33rd season at the helm and coaching in his 997th career game, called the Penguins the Horizon League’s best offensive team.

“Tonight, Sherron Dorsey-Walker did an excellent job of containing Cameron Morse. I was really proud of the way he was able to guard him, but hats off to both Santiago and Haygood for their offensive effort,” Kampe said.

“Rebounding was the key and tonight was the first night that I’ve seen Isaiah, who has been hampered by injuries, flying around out there.”

The Golden Grizzlies opened a 73-53 lead midway through the second half on a slam dunk by Brock, but a triple by Brett Frantz and four points by Santiago started a 7-0 Penguin run that cut the margin to 73-60.

Consecutive triples by Chris Palombizio increased the Oakland lead to 88-69 before an 8-2 run by the Penguins wrapped up the scoring.

“Oakland’s a basketball team that you’ve got to be on your game if you’re going to have a chance to win. We were not,” Slocum said.

“Twelve offensive rebounds, that’s the worst we’ve been outrebounded all year. Not a whole lot of positives out of tonight. We have a game on Saturday and we’ll put this one away quick.”

Haygood, a sophomore, also led the Penguins with nine rebounds but came up one shy of the first double-double of his college career.