The Youngstown State men’s basketball team (15-16, 8-12 Horizon) suffered its second straight defeat after an 85-63 loss against the Green Bay Phoenix (17-14, 12-8 Horizon) on Saturday afternoon at the Kress Center in Green Bay, WI.
Cris Carroll led the Penguins with 22 points, which was his eighth 20-point game of the season, to go along with 12 points off the bench for Vlad Salaridze and 10 points for Bryson Dawkins. Ethan Faulkner’s squad shot 40 percent (24-of-60) from the field, 28.6 percent (6-of-21) from beyond the arc, and 60 percent (9-of-15) on free throws.
The Phoenix — on Senior Day — had four players score in double figures, led by Justin Allen’s 22 points. Preston Ruedinger recorded a near triple-double with 18 points, a game-high eight rebounds and seven assists. C.J. O’Hara chipped in as well with 16 points and seven rebounds, while Caden Wilkins finished with 10 points and six boards.
Green Bay outrebounded Youngstown State 40-24 and committed just six turnovers. Doug Gottlieb’s crew shot 59.6 percent (34-of-57) from the field, which is the team’s second-highest mark all season. The Phoenix made 87.5 percent (14-of-16) of their foul shots, but only converted just 30 percent (3-of-10) of their three-pointers.
Carroll scored the first points of the day on free throws just 12 seconds into the game after getting fouled by Ruedinger, but Green Bay scored the next eight unanswered points and would not trail in the game. It started with back-to-back buckets from Ruedinger, followed by layups from Hall and O’Hara.
The Phoenix led by as many as 12 points in the first half after a layup from Hall made it 30-18 at the 3:42 mark, but YSU went on a 7-0 run to make it a two-possession deficit at 30-25 with 1:46 to go before halftime, with a three from Cam Polak and back-to-back layups from Dawkins.
Green Bay’s lead went back up to 11 after scoring the next six-straight points with a layup from Hall, a steal and a fastbreak dunk from O’Hara, and another bucket from Ramel Bethea before Polak hit another three-pointer with three seconds left to decrease the Phoenix’s lead back down to single digits at 36-28 going into halftime. Green Bay scored 32 of its 36 points in the paint in the first half.
Following intermission, Carroll scored the first bucket of the second half to make it a two-possession deficit. Then, Green Bay would go back up by 13 on two separate occasions. The first time was when the team went on a 7-0 run with an Allen layup, a Ruedinger three-ball and a fastbreak dunk from O’Hara to make it 43-30 at the 18:08 mark.
Moments later, YSU and Green Bay exchanged short 5-0 runs. The Penguins started the stretch with a Carroll three and a Salaridze fastbreak jam before the Phoenix retaliated with a three-point play from Wilkins and a layup from Ruedinger. That made it 48-35 with 15:09 to go, and the home team led by double-digits for the rest of the way.
Later on, the Phoenix were up 52-42 before blowing it wide open with an 11-2 run that was capped off with seven consecutive points courtesy of another three from Ruedinger and back-to-back layups from Vukasin Todorovic to make it a 63-44 advantage at the 10:28 mark.
The Phoenix were up by as many as 25 points after going on a 9-0 run near the end of the game with a dunk and a layup from O’Hara, free throws from Hall, a bucket from Rob Stroud and another free throw from Brady Fitzgerald. Then, Tae Blackshear hit a triple with three seconds left before the buzzer sounded to close out the scoring.
Youngstown State is locked into the No. 9 seed in the Horizon League Tournament and will visit Robert Morris in the quarterfinal round on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the UPMC Events Center in Moon Township, PA.
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