JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University men's basketball team lost in overtime to Pitt-Johnstown, 88-85, Wednesday night in a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division contest at the Sports Center in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
 
Slippery Rock's record slips to 14-4 on the year overall and 8-4 in PSAC West competition in the loss. With the win, Pitt-Johnstown improves to 8-8 overall in 2017-18 and 6-6 in league games. Wednesday was The Rock's first overtime game since losing to Seton Hill on Jan. 14, 2015, a span of 90 games.

Despite the loss, Slippery Rock still remains in great shape to capture one of the top seeds in the PSAC West for the upcoming conference tournament. With 10 league games remaining in the regular season, SRU is tied for third place with Edibnoro, just a half game back of Gannon for second place and 1.5 games behind first-place Indiana (Pa.).
 
SRU led the Mountain Cats 66-60 with 6:36 to play in regulation, but couldn't close the game out as Pitt-Johnstown finished the second half on a 10-4 run to force overtime. Slippery Rock missed its final eight field goal attempts in regulation. Even with the late shaky offensive performance, The Rock had a chance to win the game in the waning moments of the second half, but SRU missed three free throws in the final 21 seconds of regulation, including two with one second left.
 
UPJ scored 10 of the first 15 points in overtime to take an 80-75 that Slippery Rock was ultimately unable to overcome in the three-point defeat. SRU trailed by as many as seven points with 40 seconds to play before whittling Pitt-Johnstown's lead down to just three points, but two desperation 3-point attempts couldn't find the mark in the game's final seconds as UPJ hung on for the narrow victory.
 
Five Rock players finished in double figures with Micah Till leading the way on a 21-point, 12-rebound performance. The double-double was his PSAC-best 12th of the season. Brandon Simmons just missed out on his third straight double-double with 16 points and nine rebounds in addition to two blocked shots.
 
Aaron McDonald scored 12 points, grabbed four rebounds and dished out a game-high eight assists while committing just two turnovers. McDonald has accounted for 22 assists and just five turnovers over SRU's last three games.
 
Merdic Green scored 15 points on an efficient 6-for-9 night shooting to go with six rebounds and two blocks. Christal Malalu rounded out The Rock's top performers with 11 points and eight rebounds. Malalu, who had five offensive rebounds, was 5-for-6 from the floor.
 
As a team, Slippery Rock shot 44.4 percent (36-for-81) overall, but just 20.8 percent (5-for-24) from 3-point range and 66.7 percent (8-for-12) from the foul line. The Mountain Cats shot a sound 48.5 percent (32-for-66) from the field to go with seven successful 3-pointers, but also struggled from the free throw line by going just 17-for-27 (63 percent).
 
Slippery Rock held advantages over Pitt-Johnstown in total rebounds (46-40), offensive rebounds (18-11), blocks (8-4), points in the paint (52-24), second chance points (17-9) and bench scoring (17-0).
 
UPJ, which played just six players, was led by the trio of Isaac Vescovi, Dale Clancy and Josh Wise. Vescovi scored a game-high 31 points. Wise had a double-double of 20 points and 12 rebounds. Clancy scored 23 points and went 7-for-8 from the foul line in the final minute of overtime when Slippery Rock was forced to foul.
 
Slippery Rock will look to rebound from Wednesday's loss with a home victory 3 p.m. Saturday against Edinboro University at Morrow Field House.
 

 
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