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SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University men's basketball team led wire-to-wire and fought off a late charge from Clarion University to earn a 72-60 win in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division action Wednesday night from Morrow Field House.
 
The win is the second in a row for The Rock and improves the team to 14-5 overall and 9-4 in PSAC action. Clarion dropped its fifth straight game to fall to 6-10 overall and 4-9 in league games.
 
The game was never really in doubt after the Golden Eagles got off to a frigid start, missing their first 11 field goal attempts and going 2-of-18 from the field early on. Slippery Rock used that to jump out to a 37-20 lead at halftime.
 
The Rock pushed the advantage up over 20 points in the second half, but Clarion battled back to cause a bit of a scare, getting it to within eight points in the final minutes, but the Golden Eagles would get no closer.
 
Slippery Rock struggled again offensively, shooting just 32.3 percent in the second half and finishing the game at 35.8 percent from the field (24-of-67), 31.6 percent from 3-point (6-of-19) and 75 percent from the free throw line (18-of-24).
 
Clarion's frigid start featured a 22.2 percent effort in the first half (6-of-27), but the visitors rallied with a much better effort in the second half (44.8 percent) to finish the game shooting 33.9 percent (19-of-56). The Golden Eagles made none of their seven 3-point attempts and were kept alive with a strong showing at the free throw line, where they scored 22 points on a 78.6 percent effort (22-of-28).
 
Slippery Rock finished the game with a +13 rebounding margin at 51-38, well below its season average of +16.3. The Rock did top their 20.0 offensive rebounding average and pulled down 21 offensive boards that turned into 25 second chance points.
 
Clarion scored 36 of its points in the paint on layups and close-range jumpers, 22 points from the free throw line and just two points on jump shots outside of the lane.
 
The Rock was led by a double-double of 16 points and 12 rebounds from Frank Holloway. Antonio Butler scored in double figures for the seventh straight game and reached 20 points for the fourth time in the last seven games to lead SRU in scoring with 21 points. He also pulled down seven rebounds.
 
Malcolm Richardson added 13 points and six rebounds off the bench and Kelvin Goodwin chipped in 11 points to cap the top scorers for The Rock.
 
Along with the poor shooting effort, Slippery Rock struggled with its ball handling Wednesday night. The Rock entered the game with the lowest turnover ratio in the PSAC at 11.7 per game, but coughed the ball up 16 times.
 
Clarion wasn't much better at taking care of the ball, turning it over 19 times. The difference was that Slippery Rock turned those miscues into 23 points, while Clarion scored just 12 points off turnovers.
 
The Golden Eagles were paced by Kyheim Hall, who put forth a monster effort. For more than 15 minutes to start the game, he was the only player on his squad that had found the bottom of the net. Hall finished with a game-high 25 points and added 10 rebounds for a double-double. More than half his points came from the free throw line, where he went 13-of-16.
 
BJ Andrews added eight points and Rob Agurs scored seven points to round out the top three scorers for Clarion.
 
Slippery Rock will play one more game in the first round of PSAC West play when it travels to California University (Pa.) Saturday for a 5 p.m. tip. The Rock then opens the second round of division play at home against Western Division leading Gannon Jan. 28 at 8 p.m.