New/Sortable Box Score |
Traditional boxscore
MILLERSVILLE, Pa. – Slippery Rock University held off a valiant comeback effort by hosting Millersville University to record a 69-64 win Friday night in a battle of Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference division leaders.
With the win, The Rock, who recorded their third consecutive victory and improved their season records to 8-2 overall and 5-1 in conference action, assumed sole possession of first place in the PSAC's Western Division.
The Rock began the game tied with Indiana (Pa.) for the PSAC-West lead, but moved ahead of the three-time defending division champions by virtue of the Crimson Hawks' 57-55 loss Friday night at East Stroudsburg.
With its loss, IUP (8-2, 4-2 PSAC) fell into a five-way tie with California, Edinboro, Gannon and Mercyhurst for second place in the division standings, one game behind SRU.
Millersville, which saw its season records fall to 8-4 overall and 4-2 in conference action, began the night tied with East Stroudsburg (8-2, 5-1 PSAC) for first place in the PSAC's Eastern Division. The loss to The Rock dropped the Marauders into a tie with West Chester for second place in the division standings.
Senior forward
Devin Taylor paced The Rock's winning attack Friday night with game-high totals of 17 points and 13 rebounds. In the process, he recorded his team-best fourth “double-double” effort of the season.
Taylor was joined in the double-figure scoring column by three teammates. Senior guard
Darious Clark scored 14 points and grabbed seven rebounds, senior forward
Gerald Brooks (pictured) collected 12 points and nine rebounds and senior center
Luiz Santos had 12 points and six rebounds. Junior
Tabari Perry also grabbed seven rebounds for The Rock.
Elijah Obade led Millersville with 13 points and 11 rebounds.
In the final analysis, a 28-4 Rock run during an eight-minute time span midway through the game proved to be the difference in the game.
Millersville ran off 11 unanswered points in the span of three and half minutes to take a 32-21 lead with two minutes remaining in the first half.
Undaunted, The Rock responded with a 6-2 scoring advantage in the final 120 seconds of the opening stanza to trim the deficit at halftime to 32-25 and followed that up with a 22-2 run in the first six minutes of the final stanza.
The 28-4 run gave SRU a 47-34 lead with 14 minutes left to play in the game.
Millersville battled back to trim the deficit to three points with 9:30 remaining before SRU ran off seven unanswered points in the next three minutes to push the margin to 12 points, 56-44.
Five minutes later, though, the hosts had clawed their way back to get to within two points, 61-59, with 1:35 remaining.
The Rock weathered that storm with an 8-5 scoring advantage down the stretch comprised of a dunk by Clark with 1:15 left and a perfect 6-for-6 effort from the foul line in the final 45 seconds.
SRU sank 20 of 24 free throws (83%) in the game to go along with a 37% (23-63) efficiency on its field-goal attempts.
The Green and White struggled from 3-point range as they hit only three of 17 (18%) long-range shots.
The conference leaders in rebounding margin (+14.1 per game), The Rock again won the battle on the backboards by a 49-34 margin Friday night. That marked the ninth time in 10 games this winter SRU outrebounded its opponent.
Millersville shot 32% (18-56) from the field, 30% (6-20) from 3-point range and 73% (22-30) from the foul line.
The Marauders took better care of the basketball than SRU, as evidenced by a 14-9 turnover difference in favor of the hosts.
SRU will look to retain sole possession of the PSAC-West lead Saturday when they visit Shippensburg for a 7:30 p.m. game.
The next Rock games are Jan. 11 and 12, when the Green and White will host defending conference champion/current PSAC-East-leading East Stroudsburg and Kutztown, respectively, in 7:30 p.m. games in Morrow Field House.
