Men's Basketball 6/13/2013 3:22:00 PM

Mountain Cats Win Big Over Region #8 WV State

02/19/2011

Nick Novak (Murrysville, Pa.) scored a game-high 23 points to help the Mountain Cats build 28-point second half lead in a 93-74 victory over Atlantic Region No. 8 West Virginia State University, Saturday in the Sports Center. Pitt-Johnstown, which moved into second-place in the WVIAC, has won three straight games and improved to 16-8 overall and 13-7 in conference play.
Danny Branch's (Washington, D.C.) lay-up put the Mountain Cats up 6-5 early, but West Virginia State slowly built a six-point lead.
The Yellow Jackets took a 15-12 lead at 11:19 on a Robbie Lewis basket, and Brenin Garcia connected on a three-pointer to push it out to a 21-15 advantage at the 10:20 mark.
However, the Mountain Cats outscored West Virginia State 26-12 the rest of the way to take an eight-point halftime lead.
Patrick Grubbs (Turtle Creek, Pa.) gave the lead back to Pitt-Johnstown at 27-26 with a basket in the paint, and Jordan Miller (Vinco, Pa.) hit jumper with 1:51 left to make it a seven-point Mountain Cat lead at 36-29.
Pitt-Johnstown pushed the margin to as many as 10 on Grubbs' lay-up and free-throw with a minute remaining, before the Mountain Cats went into the halftime break leading 41-33.
The Mountain Cats extended it to 50-37 on Nick Novak's (Murrysville, Pa.) bucket four minutes into the second half.
The Yellow Jackets scored the next four, but Pitt-Johnstown scored eight straight, capped by a Branch dunk and a Noah Hartung (Butler, Pa.) free-throw at 12:49 to put the Mountain Cats up 58-41.
Branch then hit back-to-back three-pointers to extend the lead to 28 at 82-54 with 7:26 to play.
West Virginia State got the deficit down to 18 on consecutive three-pointer by Todd Hutchinson with 3:32 on the clock, but it never got any closer.
Novak led all scorers with 23 points on 7-8 shooting and a perfect 9-9 from the charity stripe to lead five Mountain Cats who scored in double-figures. Novak also pulled down six rebounds. Branch had 19 points and grabbed six rebounds, and Miller scored 18 points and dished out a game-high eight assists. Grubbs collected a double-double-of 17 points and 12 rebounds, while Bill Luther (Gibsonia, Pa.) chipped in 10 points and five rebounds.
Branch, who holds the Mountain Cat career-record for three-pointers with 251, also ranks sixth on the Pitt-Johnstown All-Time Scoring List with 1,433 points. Grubbs stands in 12th-place on the scoring list with 1,223 points and third on the all-time rebounding list with 720.
Pitt-Johnstown shot an impressive 59.3% (32-54) from the floor, 7-16 from three-point range, and 22-27 from the free-throw line. West Virginia State was held to just 33.3% (27-81) shooting from the field, 9-27 from behind the three-point line and 11-14 from the charity stripe.
Bo King scored 18 points and Corey Bethea had 12 points to lead the Yellow Jackets, who lost their fourth straight game and fell to 15-9 overall and 14-6 in the WVIAC.
The Mountain Cats will host a doubleheader with the Lady Cats against West Virginia Wesleyan College for Senior Night on Wednesday. The Lady Cats will tip-off at 6 p.m., followed by the men's game at 8 p.m. Pitt-Johnstown will then wrap-up the regular season at Seton Hill University on Saturday.

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