The Youngstown State men’s basketball team (8-9, 2-5 Horizon) suffered another heartbreaking defeat, a tough 71-69 loss at the hands of the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons (10-8, 4-3 Horizon) at Zidian Family Arena at Beeghly Center on Wednesday night. It’s the fourth straight loss for the Penguins.
Head coach Jon Coffman’s Mastodons were up 7-4 at the first media timeout before Drew King’s three-point play knotted it up at the 15:33 mark. The Mastodons answered with a three-pointer from Yuval Levin on the other end of the floor to regain a 10-7 edge before YSU took its first lead of the night at 12-10 with made free throws from Jaiden Haynes and a triple by Vlad Salaridze with 13:31 to go. PFW’s E.J.
Mosley countered with a three of his own before the ‘Guins regained the advantage with six unanswered points with a Salaridze tip-in and back-to-back layups by Rich Rolf and Imanuel Zorgvol, which gave YSU an 18-13 lead with 11:01 to play in the first half.
Purdue Fort Wayne responded with a 7-0 run courtesy of a Chris Morgan three-pointer, made free throws from Mosley and a Mikale Stevenson layup to go in front 20-18.
YSU’s Cam Polak exchanged trey balls with PFW’s DeAngelo Elisee, with Polak hitting two of them to give YSU a 24-23 lead. After an Elisee layup and a Darius Duffy dunk, Polak nailed his third triple in a 2:03 span to tie the game at 27-all with 7:53 on the first half timer.
The ‘Dons posted the next four points with back-to-back buckets from Stevenson and Corey Hadnot II to lead 31-27, and their advantage reached five at 39-34 with 4:19 to go following a fastbreak layup from Levin. During this stretch alone, the visitors shot a staggering 90.9 percent (10-of-11) from the field.
YSU scored the next four points thanks to free throws from Polak and Jason Nelson to pull within one point at 39-38 before a Mason Shrout triple made it a two-possession game, 42-38, with 1:50 left until the intermission. The Penguins scored the final four points of the first half with more made foul shots from Nelson and a layup from Zorgvol to make it a 42-42 tie at recess.
Youngstown State’s Cris Carroll scored the first four points of the second half for a 46-42 edge, and it was tied again at 52-all with 11:46 remaining after a Stevenson three. A Haynes layup gave YSU the lead before the two teams traded threes, beginning with Mosley, then Salaridze, followed by DeAndre Craig, and ending with Carroll. Nevertheless, the Penguins had a 60-58 lead.
The game was knotted back up at 60-all thanks to a pair of free throws from Craig with 8:08 remaining, and another freebie from Maximus Nelson put the ‘Dons up 61-60 before a Rolf tip-in helped the Penguins regain the lead at 62-61. However, the Mastodons unleashed an elephant stampede with a game-changing 7-0 run with free throws, a layup from Hadnot, and a three from Nelson to go up 68-62 with 4:47 left in the second half.
Carroll and Levin traded foul shots to make it a 69-63 score, but the Penguins waddled back by scoring the next six unanswered points over the next 2:59 with a Zorgvol dunk, a Carroll layup, and another Zorgvol dunk to tie the score at 69 with 54.8 seconds to go.
After the ‘Dons called a 30-second timeout, Hadnot drove to the rim only to get fouled by Zorgvol, and made a pair of shots at the charity stripe to give PFW the 71-69 lead with 22 ticks left.
After YSU took a 30-second timeout of their own, Carroll airballed the potential game-winning triple at the top of the key to end the night.
The Penguins shot 48.3 percent (14-of-29) in the first half and 41.7 percent (25-of-60) from the field overall while making a poor 29.6 percent (8-of-27) of their three-pointers and a solid 78.6 percent (11-of-14) of their free throw tries. Youngstown State also won the battles in rebounding (41-31), second-chance points (23-7), bench points (33-24), and points in the paint (34-22). Out of their 41 rebounds, 15 came off the offensive glass.
Carroll led the team with 14 points plus eight rebounds, with a dozen coming from Haynes, 11 from Polak, 10 from Zorgvol, and eight from Salaridze. Rolf scored only four points, but pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds.
Despite the loss against PFW, head coach Ethan Faulkner said the team responded better physically to the Mastodons than in the matchup against Northern Kentucky on Jan. 4.
“First half, we had some breakdowns in the ball screen, which led to a lot of open threes for [Purdue Fort Wayne]. Thought we got that corrected at halftime and played a much better defensive half in the second half. Obviously, when you hold them to 71, you win the game. Offensively, we gotta continue to take care of the basketball,” Faulkner said. “We keep saying that over and over, another night where we have 12 assists, 16 turnovers, and all of a sudden, we can’t make a shot. Certainly, I thought we had some clean looks tonight that didn’t go down, but we gotta continue to fight until we get back on the right track.”
The Mastodons, who came into the matchup in a five-way tie for 33rd in the country in fewest turnovers per game (10.1), committed 11 mistakes. They shot 50 percent (15-of-30) from the field in the first half and 41.5 percent (22-of-53) for the whole game while knocking down 41.7 percent (10-of-24) of their threes and 77.3 percent (17-of-22) of their free throws. Hadnot II led PFW with 14 points and five assists, while Stevenson scored 13 points and pulled down five rebounds.
Up next, YSU will remain at home to host USCAA opponent Bryant & Stratton at 11 a.m. Jan. 9 at Zidian Family Arena inside Beeghly Center for a kids’ school day field trip.
James Moon (CashApp): $JRMoon1991
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