South Euclid, Oh. – The Penn State Greater Allegheny Men’s Basketball Team (5-3, 0-0) fought hard against Division II Notre Dame College on Wednesday but, in the end, suffered their third loss of the season falling 93-87. PSUGA was tied with Notre Dame College heading into halftime but a 51-point second half would help Notre Dame claim the victory.
PSUGA would start the second half on a 5-0 run to jump out to a 47-42 lead at the start of the half. However, Notre Dame College would be able to pull ahead as they followed that up with an 11-0 run of their own to make the advantage 53-47. Notre Dame continued to pull away from PSUGA extending the lead to 66-52 with 12:54 to play.
PSUGA brought the score to as close as six points, but were unable to ever overtake Notre Dame College. This was the third matchup of the season for PSUGA against a Division II team as they have also taken on Point Park and Clarion earlier this season. In those three games PSUGA is 1-3 and averages 87.3 PPG.
Jordon Payne (McKeesport, Pa./McKeesport) has now scored 20 or more points in six straight contests as he led the team with 30 points on the day. Payne has also gone over 30 points in three out of the last four games and with today’s performance moves to 953 career points and needs just 47 more points to reach the 1,000-point mark in his PSUGA career in just his Junior season.
Kenny Rouse (Duquesne, Pa./West Mifflin) had his best game of the season scoring 16 points and Curtis Newby (Sharon, Pa./Sharon HS) scored 13 points on the day and collected his fifth double-double in eight games this season with a team high 10 rebounds. Makis Rivera (Pittsburgh, Pa./Imani Chrisitian Academy) rounds out the double-digit scorers with 12 points on the day.
Khari Hicks (East Hills, Pa./Imani Christian Academy) led the team with five assists on the day putting him just one assist away from tying the all-time PSUGA record for assists in a career. He currently sits at 296 assists in his career and looks to break the record in PSUGA’s Penn State University Athletic Conference opener on Tuesday against Penn State Beaver.
PSUGA now sits at 5-3 overall and in second place in the PSUAC conference standings. They will open up conference play on Tuesday November 28th when they take on Penn State Beaver at 8 p.m. looking to defend their 2016/17 PSUAC Conference title.
