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MANSFIELD, Pa. – Senior guard
Darious Clark came off the bench to hit five 3-point shots and score a team-high 17 points Sunday afternoon to lead the Slippery Rock University men's basketball team to a come-from-behind, 78-69 win at Mansfield in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference “crossover” action.
Clark was one of five Rock players who scored 10 or more points in the game. Senior forward
Devin Taylor (right photo) scored 14 points and grabbed a team-high 12 rebounds, junior guard
Tabari Perry also scored 14 points, senior guard
John Bayardelle added 13 points and senior guard
Sa'Quan Davis chipped in 11 points.
Joe Bell, the 2011-12 PSAC-Eastern Division Rookie of the Year, carried most of the load for the Mountaineers as he scored a game-high 30 points and tied Taylor for game-high rebounding honors with 12. Onyema Utti added 13 points and seven rebounds for Mansfield.
Sunday's win was the second in as many days and PSAC “crossover” games for The Rock, who improved their season record to 4-1 and their conference mark to 2-0.
Mansfield lost for the second consecutive day in “crossover” action and saw its season records dip to 1-3 overall, 0-2 in PSAC action.
The Rock scored the first three and six of the first nine points of the game, but then spent the remainder of the opening 20 minutes of action in comeback mode as Mansfield rode a 12-0 run to a nine-point, 15-6, advantage with 15:15 left to play in the first half.
SRU came back with a 6-0 run in the next 30 seconds to trim the difference to three points, 15-12, with 14:45 left.
Mansfield merely regained its balance and ran off a string of 11 unanswered points to take a 14-point, 26-12, lead at the 11:30 mark.
SRU twice trimmed the gap to three points in the span of one minute, the final one cutting the margin to 32-29 with 4:30 left before halftime.
Mansfield scored nine of the next 11 points to take a 12-point, 41-29, lead with 0:45 left before the intermission and took a 41-32 lead into the break.
That lead lasted three and a half minutes in the second half of action before SRU rode an 11-2 run to tie the score at 43-43 with 16:30 left to play.
The score was tied on four other occasions and the lead changed 13 times in the final 16-plus minutes of action before The Rock took the lead for good, 70-68, on a Clark 3-pointer with two minutes left.
The Rock outscored Mansfield by an 11-1 margin in the final two and a half minutes.
SRU finished the game with a 41% (28-69) efficiency on its field-goal attempts, buried 32% (8-25) of its 3-point shots and made 67% (14-21) of its free throws.
Mansfield, meanwhile, made 43% (27-63) of its action shots, 32% (6-19) of its long-range shots and 64% (9-14) of its free throws.
The Rock took better care of the basketball, as evidenced by a 17-12 turnover comparison that showed Mansfield on the higher edge.
Mansfield was the first team this winter to outrebound The Rock, albeit by only one rebound, 43-42.
The Rock are idle until Saturday, Dec. 8, when they will travel to Clarion University to open PSAC-Western Division action. Tipoff in Tippin Gymnasium is set for 7:30 p.m.
The game at Clarion will conclude a four-game road trip for SRU. The next Green and White home game is Dec. 18 against PSAC “crossover” rival West Chester University. That, in turn, starts a string of three consecutive home games for The Rock.
