Men's Basketball 6/13/2013 3:06:00 PM

Mountain Cats Hammer Seton Hill, 96-77

01/22/2011

Patrick Grubbs (Turtle Creek, Pa.) scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to help the Mountain Cats build a 24-point halftime lead in 96-77 WVIAC victory over Seton Hill University, Saturday afternoon in the Sports Center. Pitt-Johnstown, which had six players score in double-figures, improved to 11-4 overall and 8-3 in conference play.
The Mountain Cats dominated the first half from the opening tip. Pitt-Johnstown scored the first 12 points and ran out to an 18-3 lead seven minutes into the game on a pair of Grubbs free-throws.
Chris Rizzo's three-pointer at 7:15 capped a 21-12 Seton Hill run over the next five minutes and pulled the Griffins to within six at 30-24, but it was all Mountain Cats to close out the half.
Pitt-Johnstown outscored Seton Hill 21-3 the rest of the way to build a 51-27 halftime advantage. Two of Danny Branch's (Washington, D.C.) 17 first half points pushed the lead to 20 with 3:01 left, before Nick Novak's (Murrysville, Pa.) lay-up at the clock ran out gave the Mountain Cats their largest lead of the first half at 24.
Pitt-Johnstown built the lead to 25 at 61-36 on Jordan Miller's (Vinco, Pa.) three-pointer at 16:12. Seton Hill cut it to 20 on Chris Giles' lay-up two minutes later.
Another Miller three-pointer at the 13-minute mark got the lead back out to 25, before the Mountain Cats extended the lead to as many as 28 on two occasions., with the last coming on Kevin Byer's (Davidsville, Pa.) free-throw at 6:58.
The Griffins never got closer than 19 points.
Grubbs led six Mountain Cat double-figure scorers with 20 points on 7-10 shooting and 6-6 from the free-throw line. Branch scored 17 and pulled down six rebounds, while Miller finished with 14 points, including four three-pointers, and six assists. Paul Weatherly (Johnstown, Pa.) scored 13 points, and Novak scored 12 points and dished out a game-high eight assists. Bill Luther (Gibsonia, Pa.) rounded out the double-figure scorers with 10 points.
Branch, who holds the Mountain Cat career-record for three-pointers with 226, also ranks eighth on the Pitt-Johnstown All-Time Scoring List with 1,306 points. Grubbs stands in 17th-place on the scoring list with 1,053 points and fifth-place on the Mountain Cat All-Time Rebounding List with 633.
Pitt-Johnstown, which out-rebounded the Griffins 44-32, ended the day shooting 55.7% (34-61) from the field, 10-20 from three-point range, and 18-22 from the free-throw, while holding Seton Hill to 41.4% (29-70) shooting. The Griffins were also 6-20 from behind the three-point line and 13-20 from the charity stripe.
Miller's game-high 25 points paced three Griffins who scored in double-figures. Seton Hill fell to 8-11 overall and 4-8 in the WVIAC.
The Mountain Cats host a WVIAC doubleheader with the Lady Cats against Ohio Valley (WV) University on Thursday at 8 p.m., before traveling to the University of Charleston (WV) for another conference game on Saturday.

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