Men's Basketball 6/13/2013 3:53:00 PM

Mountain Cats Fall 76-73 at Home to Seton Hill

02/01/2010

Patrick Grubbs (Turtle Creek, Pa.) had a double-double of 22 points and 11 rebounds, but Pitt-Johnstown never regained the lead after scoring the first basket of the game in a 76-73 WVIAC loss to Seton Hill University, Monday night int he Sports Center. The Mountain Cats dropped to 9-9 overall and 5-8 in conference play.
After a Grubbs put Pitt-Johnstown up 2-0 36 seconds into the game, Seton Hill took control and never gave up the lead the rest of the night. The Griffins scored the next 10 points to build a 10-2 lead at 16:21 on a three-pointer by Ozren Bjelogrlic.
The Mountain Cats cut it to 24-22 on a Rudy Roberts' (Cleveland, OH) free-throw with 9:10 remaining, but Seton Hill scored four straight to pushed it back out to a six-point lead at the eight-minute mark on Ivan Cosovic's lay-up.
Pitt-Johnstown got it down to two again when Roberts found Nick Novak (Murrysville, Pa.) for a lay-up to make it 28-26 at 7:15. Justin McCoy's three-pointer extended the Griffins lead to 41-34 with 1:04 on the clock, before Seton Hill took a 41-36 halftime advantage.
A McCoy lay-up four-minutes into the second half gave the Griffins a 12-point lead at 48-36.
Danny Branch's (Washington, D.C.) rebound and put-back for the Mountain Cats at 13:12 got the deficit down to 55-49, but Seton Hill outscored Pitt-Johnstown 7-2 over the next 2:27 to increase the lead to 62-51.
The Mountain Cats battled back to pull within three at 76-73 on Novak's free-throws with 47 seconds left, but Seton Hill was able to hold on to the least the rest of the way.
Pitt-Johnstown ended the night shooting 52.6% from the field, 4-13 from behind the three-point line and 9-12 from the free-throw line. Seton Hill, which committed just five turnovers, shot 44.6% from the floor, 7-15 from three-point range and 3-8 from the free-throw line. The Griffins took 17 more shots than the Mountain Cats and held a 20-11 advantage on the offensive end.
Grubbs led all scorers with 22 points on 10-15 shooting and 2-3 from the free-throw line to lead three Mountain Cats who scored in double-figures. Grubbs also pulled down 11 rebounds and dished out five assists. Branch had 19 points and Novak tallied 10 points and four rebounds. Andy Byer (Tire Hill, Pa.) had nine points and five assists.
McCoy paced Seton Hill with 18 points and a game-high nine assists. Chris Giles (17 points), Cody Boone (16 points) and Bjelogrlic (15 points) also scored in double-figures, while Boone grabbed 11 rebounds for the Griffins, who snapped a five-game losing streak and improved to 8-9 overall and 6-6 in the WVIAC.
The Mountain Cats will host WVIAC doubleheaders with the Lady Cats against Concord (WV) University on Thursday and Bluefield State (WV) College on Saturday. The Lady Cats will tip-off both doubleheaders at 5:30 p.m. in the Sports Center.

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