By Austin Malutic, Special to the HoriZone Roundtable
Two first year Penguin stars catch fire late as No 4. Seed Youngstown State defeats No. 5 Seed Purdue Fort Wayne this evening in the quarterfinals of the 2025 Horizon League Men’s Basketball Championship.
It wasn’t the started Youngstown State wanted as they started the game shooting just 1-9 in the first media timeout and then 1-6 in the second media timeout before going on a 8-0 and showing some life in the next media timeout going on a 8-0 run to cut the Fort Wayne lead down 16-15 with 7:44 to go first half.
The Penguins and Mastodons went back and forth the final 7 and a half minutes in that first half evening, The score up at 26.
First Half Stats:
Youngstown State 8-31 from the field while 0-15 from 3 point land.
Purdue Fort Wayne 9-30 from the field while 3-10 from 3 point land.
The Penguins were finally able to get their first 3 in the game at the 15:15 mark in the 2nd Half where Nico Galette would hit a three and would do the same, next possession down to give YSU a quick run and a Fort Wayne timeout as the Penguins would take a 40-33 lead.
Ty Harper would also get going after just 4 points in the first half as he finished with 20 points but hitting crucial back to back 3’s at the 4:56 point to give the Penguins a 15 point lead at 59-44, However the Mastodons scored the next nine points to get within 59-53. Purdue Fort Wayne got as close as 68-67 with 8.8 seconds remaining, but Cris Carroll made two clutch free throws with 8.4 on the clock to up the margin back to three.
Purdue Fort Wayne’s Rasheed Bello was fouled purposely with 6.1 seconds left, and he missed both attempts. The second was grabbed by the Mastodons, and leading scorer Jalen Jackson had an open look come up short. Carroll was fouled again with 0.8 seconds left, and he put the game out of reach by making two more free throws.
Galette finished with a game-high 22 points while grabbing 10 rebounds for his eighth double-double, and Harper scored 20 points. They combined to make five 3-pointers in the second half to give YSU a big boost in the 2nd half.
Quinton Morton-Robertson led Purdue Fort Wayne with 21 points, and he made two 3-pointers in the final minute to give the Mastodons a chance to cap a huge rally.
Youngstown State finished 25-for-31 from the free-throw line, and it held a huge rebounding advantage at 49-33.
The Penguins keep their season alive and advance to the tournament semifinals against Cleveland State at Corteva Coliseum on Monday evening at 9:30pm ET. Youngstown State improved to 20-12 and have won at least 20 games for three straight seasons, a first in the program’s history.
