Men's Basketball 6/13/2013 2:56:00 PM

Mountain Cats Hold Off Bloomsburg, 70-68

12/11/2010

Patrick Grubbs (Turtle Creek, Pa.) scored 19 points and altered a potential game-tying lay-up as time expired to lead the Mountain Cats to a 70-68 non-conference victory over Bloomsburg University, Saturday afternoon in the Sports Center. Pitt-Johnstown, which gave Head Coach Bob Rukavina his 350th career victory, ended a two game losing skid and improved to 6-2.
Following a Mountain Cat turnover with :06 left to play, Grubbs got a piece of Trevon Johnson's lay-up at the buzzer, preserving a two-point Pitt-Johnstown victory.
Kendall Smith's lay-up 6:44 into the game put Bloomsburg up 14-9, but a Patrick Grubbs (Turtle Creek, Pa.) basketball midway through the half capped a 9-2 Mountain Cat spurt and gave Pitt-Johnstown a slim 18-16 lead.
The Huskies regained the lead and pushed it out to 30-24 on Larry Webster's dunk at 5:29, before two more of Grubbs' 12 first half points put Pitt-Johnstown back on top 33-32 with 3:02 left.
Then, with the Mountain Cats trailing 36-35 with under a minute remaining, the Bloomsburg bench was hit with a technical foul. Nick Novak (Murrysville, Pa.) made both free-throws from the technical and hit a jumper on the next possession to give Pitt-Johnstown its largest lead of the first half at 39-36.
A free-throw by Jesse Betar with under 10 seconds left cut the Huskies deficit to 39-37 at the break.
Bloomsburg kept it close and two Johnson free-throws at 15:34 of the second put Huskies back into the lead at 43-41.
Pitt-Johnstown scored the next eight to build a 49-43 advantage Paul Weatherly's (Johnstown, Pa.) basket at 13:30, but once again, the Huskies responded with a 14-4 run to take a 57-53 on Dontahe Jordan's dunk two free-throw from Betar with 8:12 to play.
Bloomsburg held the lead until the Mountain Cats used a 15-9 run to retake the lead 68-66 on Danny Branch's (Washington, D.C.) dunk 1:57 on the clock.
A Huskies' basket knotted it at 68, but Grubbs' lay-up with 1:13 remaining make it 70-68 and sealed the win.
Grubbs paced Pitt-Johnstown with 19 points on 8-11 shooting. Grubbs also grabbed six rebounds, while Novak had 15 points and four assists. Branch scored 14 points, pulled down four rebounds and dished out a game-high six assists, and Noah Hartung (Butler, Pa.) rounded out the double-figure scorers with 10 points.
Branch, who holds the Mountain Cat career-record for three-pointers with 206, also ranks 11th on the Pitt-Johnstown All-Time Scoring List with 1,181 points. Grubbs is tied for ninth-place on the Mountain Cat All-Time Rebounding List with 564. Grubbs is also 86 points away from becoming the 22nd Mountain Cat to reach the 1,000-point plateau.
The Mountain Cats ended the day shooting 54% (27-50) from the field with five three-pointers. Pitt-Johnstown was also 11-16 from the free-throw line. Bloomsburg shot just 39.1% (27-69) from the floor and 2-13 from behind the three-point line. The Huskies, who out-rebounded Pitt-Johnstown 40-32, were 12-17 from the charity stripe.
Larry Webster scored 19 points and had six rebounds to lead four Huskies who scored in double-figures. With the loss, Bloomsburg dropped to 3-5.
The Mountain Cats travel to Shepherd (WV) University for a WVIAC game on Saturday before breaking for the holiday season. Pitt-Johnstown will open the second semester at home with a non-conference game against Central Penn College on Wednesday, January 5 at 7 p.m. in the Sports Center.

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