West Chester’s men’s basketball team goes 1-1 during the week after a postponed comeback win against Millersville, and a disappointing loss at home against Kutztown on Saturday.
Both of the games this past week were home for the basketball team, as they first had a game on Wednesday against Millersville, that was postponed until Thursday evening. West Chester was on a nice two game winning streak going into the game, but they knew that the game would be a fight, and a fight is exactly what they got.
Millersville (9-11), already beat West Chester earlier in the season when West Chester traveled to Millersville on Dec. 4. The Marauders won on a layup with two seconds left by Brandon Brown that gave Millersville a one-point lead, and then Shannon Givens missed the potential game winning three pointer as time expired. So this time around, the Golden Rams were looking for revenge.
In a very fast-paced first half, Millersville looked like the better team as they took a two point lead into halftime. They were out rebounding and taking care of the ball better than West Chester. As the second half began, both teams went back and forth for the first six minutes, until West Chester took a four point lead on a layup by Ben Mingledough and never looked back.
Because of Mingledough and Cory Blake, the Golden Rams built up their lead to double digits by the time the midway point of the second half rolled around. From that point on, it was all West Chester, as they cruised in the later part of the second half to an 86-74 victory, their third straight win.
Shannon Givens had 22 points and nine rebounds to lead the Golden Rams, and Mingledough chipped in with a career high 20 points. Troy Hockaday also had 18 points and eight rebounds. Millersville’s Kelvin Parker and Tyree Smith each had game highs of 24 points for the Marauders in the losing effort. Next up for West Chester was a home matchup against a sub-par Kutztown team, in a game that they needed to win to stay tied with Bloomsburg for second in the PSAC.
Earlier in the season, West Chester went into Kutztown in a game that the Rams controlled and won easily 85-71, as Givens had 22 points, and Matt Wiseley grabbed 15 rebounds off the bench in the win, and they were looking to do more of the same on Saturday. However, Kutztown had different plans.
In the beginning of the game, West Chester looked strong as they built their lead to 16 with five minutes left in the first half. After that, West Chester stopped playing their game, and Kutztown took over. West Chester was outscored by 11 in the second half and surrendered the lead for the first time on an 11-3 run capped by a three pointer by Fred Dukes IV with less than a minute and a half left in the game. Wiseley came back on the other end of the court and sunk two free throws to give the Rams a lead by one. After a missed layup by Hockaday and two more free throws by Dukes the Golden Bears were up by three with less than a minute left.
After going back and forth for the final minute and after Ryan Connnolly for Kutztown went six for six from the line in the final 15 seconds, West Chester was down three with three seconds left and no timeouts. Givens was inbounding the ball, and threw a perfect baseball pass the length of the court, over the outstretched arms of freshman Austin Beidelman and into the hands of R.J. Griffin and he had a perfect shot from the left corner. However, it rimmed out and West Chester fell to Kutztown 73-70, also falling to third in the PSAC standings behind East Stroudsburg and Bloomsburg.
Connolly for the Golden Bears had a game high 19 points, and Dukes chipped in with 18 points as well. For the Golden Rams it was a poor shooting day, as they only shot 43 percent from the field. Hockaday led them with 16 points. The key element in the loss for West Chester is that they had 28 fouls, which led to 37 free throw attempts for Kutztown, of which they made 30. West Chester will look to bounce back on Wednesday in a game at Lock Haven.
The leaders for the Golden Rams are Troy Hockaday, averaging 16.9 points per game, Matt Wiseley with 6.5 rebounds per game, and Shannon Givens with 2.7 assits per game.
West Chester has played Lock Haven earlier in the season at home, in which they won by four in an overtime thriller. Lock Haven sits in fourth place in the PSAC, only a half a game behind West Chester, so this is a pivotal game for both teams.
Lock Haven is on quite a tear lately, winning six of seven games, including a two point victory over nationally ranked East Stroudsburg, while ESU was still undefeated. Their only loss in this stretch was against Bloomsburg by one point, so the Golden Rams know they have their work cut out for them.
West Chester has four regular season games left, with three of them against Lock Haven, Bloomsburg, and East Stroudsburg, so it is very important that the Rams finish the season strong.
Lock Haven, East Stroudsburg,and Bloomsburg have a combined record of 48-16 this season, and West Chester is 1-2 against these two teams. West Chester’s final game of the season is against East Stroudsburg, who has already clinched a PSAC playoff berth, are nationally ranked and have one loss. West Chester will look to exact revenge against the Warriors, and show the world that they are as good, if not better, of a team than East Stroudsburg. In the game earlier in the season the Rams lost 107-94. However, it was a much closer game than the score dictated. West Chester was actually up by five at one point in the game, until the Warriors went on a 21-3 run to close out the game. Possibly the Rams got tired, but they know that they are capable of winning the final four games, and most importantly the final game of the season.
West Chester has one home game remaining on their schedule which is Feb. 15 against Shippensburg, so make sure you come out and support your fellow Golden Rams.
Ryan Calpin is a second-year student majoring in Communication Studies with a minor in Journalism. He can be reached at RC784188@wcupa.edu.