GREENSBURG, Pa. - The Slippery Rock University men's basketball team dropped a 72-52 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division decision on the road Saturday against Seton Hill University at the McKenna Center in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
 
Saturday's result moves The Rock's record to 11-11 overall and 7-7 inside the PSAC West while the Griffins improve to 13-9 overall and 6-8 in league games.
 
With six games remaining in the regular season Slippery Rock now finds itself situated in a tie for third place in the PSAC West standings alongside California (Pa.). The Rock and Vulcans sit one game behind second-place Edinboro (8-6) and a half game ahead of IUP and Pitt-Johnstown which are tied for fifth in standings via matching 6-7 league records.
 
The top six teams from both the PSAC West and PSAC East at the end of the regular season qualify for the PSAC Tournament. SRU has made the PSAC Tournament in 13 of the last 15 seasons.
 
Ike Herster and Day Waters combined to score 33 of The Rock's 52 points. Herster just missed out on a double-double with 20 points and nine rebounds while Waters went for 13 points, five rebounds, five assists and one steal.
 
Luke Howes provided SRU with seven points, six rebounds, three assists and two steals. O'Meech Wilson rounded out The Rock's top contributors courtesy of an eight-rebound, two-block, two-steal effort.
 
The Rock could never find their collective offensive footing Saturday, finishing the game shooting just 33.3 percent (19-of-57) from the field overall, 15 percent (3-of-20) from 3-point range and 68.8 percent (11-of-16) at the foul line. Slippery Rock did commit just eight turnovers in the loss, marking a third consecutive game in which it has finished with a single-digit turnover total.  
 
Slippery Rock and Griffins played to an 11-11 tie through the opening eight minutes of regulation with Waters (6) and Herster (5) accounting for all of SRU's points. The Rock and SHU then traded points – SRU's coming by way of a pair of Wilson foul shots - out of the break followed by an Alex Griggs 3-pointer that put Slippery Rock up 16-13 at the 10:36 mark in the period.
 
However, the remainder of the half belonged to Seton Hill which scored 14 of the following 15 points after Griggs' triple to give their selves a double-digit lead that they would keep for the near remainder of the period before taking a 13-point, 39-26, advantage into halftime.
 
Seton Hill made 10 of its final 16 field goal attempts in the first half, including a 5-of-7 showing from 3-point range, while SRU's offense went cold with just three field goals over the last 10 minutes of the period.
 
Slippery Rock was unable to mount a serious comeback over the final 20 minutes as SHU never let its advantage slip below 10 points while closing out the home victory by stretching its lead out to as many as 22 points in the second half en route to the 20-point victory.

The Griffins ended the day shooting 50 percent (28-of-56) overall including a 7-of-19 clip (.368) from 3-point territory in addition to making 9-of-11 foul shots and holding a slight +5 rebounding margin (37-32) over SRU.
 
Kedrick Curtis compiled a 16-point, 10-rebound double-double and Gabe Gillespie scored a team-high 19 points to lead Seton Hill.
 
Slippery Rock returns home to host California (Pa.) 3 p.m. Feb. 8 at Morrow Field House.




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