Tae Blackshear scored a career-high 22 points off the bench, but the Youngstown State men’s basketball team (13-14, 6-10 Horizon) could not complete the comeback in their 76-70 road loss over the Detroit Mercy Titans (14-12, 10-5 Horizon) on Sunday afternoon at Calihan Hall in Detroit.
Blackshear tied a program single-game record by going 9-for-9 from the field with a shooting percentage of 100 percent. He is the first player to make seven or more field-goal attempts without a miss since former Penguin TeJay Anderson did it against Southern Utah on Jan. 13, 2001.
Bryson Dawkins was the only other Penguin in double-figure scoring with 20 points on 8-of-16 shooting from the field, with 16 of them coming in the second half.
The Penguins recorded 40 of their 70 points in the paint, but made 45.8 percent (27-of-59) of their overall shots and shot an abysmal 22.7 percent three-point range (5-of-22) while making just 68.8 percent (11-of-16) of their free throws.
Mark Montgomery’s Titans recorded more steals (8) than turnovers (7) and outrebounded YSU 38-33. Tyler Spratt led UDM with 15 points and nine rebounds, 13 off the bench for London Maiden, 12 each for Orlando Lovejoy and Lance Stone and 10 each for Ryan Kalambay and TJ Nadeau.
Detroit Mercy shot 43.5 percent (27-of-62) from the field, 38.5 percent (5-of-13) from three-point territory and a solid 77.3 percent (17-of-22) from the foul line.
Youngstown State trailed UDM by 11 twice in the first half with a Kalambay layup and free throws from Maiden to maintain the margin at 29-18 with 7:04 to go.
Ethan Faulkner’s squad scored nine unanswered points to get within two and held the home team scoreless for the next 4:29. It consisted of four made free throws by Rich Rolf, a Cris Carroll three-pointer and a fast-break layup by Jason Nelson to make it 29-27 at the 3:05 mark.
Detroit Mercy went on to score eight of the last 10 points of the first half, including the last six unanswered points with a Kalambay layup and back-to-back buckets from Lovejoy, to take a 37-29 lead into the intermission.
The Penguins trailed by as many as 15 at 61-46 with just 7:21 left in the game after UDM went on an 8-0 run with back-to-back threes from Stone and Nadeau, followed by a Stone layup.
With YSU down 66-52 following Spratt’s three-point play at the 4:20 mark, the Penguins waddled back into it with a 14-3 run over the next 3:24 and trailed by just one possession at 69-66 with 56 seconds remaining, with Dawkins and Blackshear combining for all 14 YSU points during that stretch — six for Blackshear and eight for Dawkins.
Spratt then got fouled by Carrol and made two free throws, made a steal at the other end of the court, and passed it to Lovejoy on the fastbreak for a bucket to extend UDM’s lead to seven at 73-66 with 24 seconds remaining.
After a Dawkins layup, Stone and Spratt combined to hit three of the Titans’ last four free-throw tries to put the cream cheese on the bagel. Blackshear then made a layup with two seconds left to close out the scoring.
Youngstown State will be at home for its next two games and will host Cleveland State on Wednesday for a 6:30 p.m. tip-off at Zidian Family Arena at Beeghly Center.
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“their 76-70 road win over the Detroit Mercy Titans”
I think you meant road loss
We did mean that, and it’s fixed now.