McKeesport, PA. – After suffering a tough loss to PSU-York on Friday night, the Penn State Greater Allegheny Men’s Basketball Team (11-5, 8-4) were looking for a bounce back effort on Tuesday night. They would do just that blowing past Penn State DuBois (4-15, 0-13) 87-70 and getting back on track in conference play.
After the two teams battled to an 11-10 score over the first seven minutes of the game, PSUGA would take off on an 18-0 run that ran the score to 29-10 with eight minutes remaining in the half. PSUGA’s defense remained tough all the way to halftime allowing just 12 more points in the half as PSUGA went into the locker room up 39-22.
After managing just 50 points against Penn State York on Friday, the PSUGA offense came to form led by another impressive performance by senior Mhonte Newsome (Baltimore, MD./Our Lady of Mt. Saint Carmel). He scored 10 of his game high 20 points in the quarter, accounting for a quarter of his team’s total offense.
The offense continued into the second half with PSUGA scoring the first seven points of the half and pushing their lead to 46-22. The lead would swell to 54-29 before head coach Tyler Care started putting his bench ineffectively ending the game. PSUGA would go on to score 33 points over the final 14 minutes of play and despite DuBois’s best comeback efforts, PSUGA was able to hold them off and pick up the 87-70 win.
Newsome finished the day with 20 points making it back-to-back games that he has been in double digits. He also led the defense with 11 rebounds while teammates Jordon Payne (McKeesport, PA./McKeesport HS) and Kenny Rouse (Duquesne, PA./West Mifflin HS) followed behind with 19 and 13 points respectively.
With the win, PSUGA gets themselves back in a good place in the Penn State University Athletic Conference playoff race moving their conference record to 8-4. With seven conference games remaining on the schedule, anything could happen as PSUGA looks to sneak into the tournament for the fourth consecutive season.
PSUGA returns to action on Friday when they take on Penn State Lehigh Valley at 8 p.m. as the second half of a men’s and women’s basketball doubleheader.
