Drew Magestro's 3-pointer with six seconds left erased a late seven-point deficit and lifted the Mountain Cats to a 65-63 PSAC victory at Indiana University (PA), Thursday night at the Kovalchick Center in Indiana. Pitt-Johnstown, which dealt the Crimson Hawks their first PSAC West home loss since 2014, improved to 12-10 overall and 10-8 in conference-play.
Dante Lombardi's basket increased IUP's lead with 1:38 on the clock to 63-56, before
Dale Clancy's 3-pointer and three free-throws made it 63-62 with 32 seconds remaining. Pitt-Johnstown got the ball back four seconds later when Anthony Glover missed the front end of a one-and-one, and Magestro drained the game-winning 3-pointer.
IUP started fast and got a pair of 3-pointers from Glover and consecutive layups from Jacabo Diaz to climb out to a 13-8 lead five minutes into the game.
Pitt-Johnstown answered with a 15-0 run to build a 10-point advantage of its own. Clancy's 3-pointer at 11:17 gave the lead back to the Mountain Cats, and
Isaac Vescovi and Clancy knocked down 3-pointers to close it and put Pitt-Johnstown up 23-13.
The Crimson Hawks cut it to 23-21 on Willem Brandwijk's dunk with 7:34 left in the half, before two
Marcin Wiszomirski free-throws at 4:51 pushed the Mountain Cats' lead back out to eight.
IUP came back and outscored Pitt-Johnstown 9-0 to go back in front by one on Ayron Hutton's 3-pointer, but
Josh Wise's lay-up with 1:23 to go gave Pitt-Johnstown a slim, 31-30, halftime advantage.
Levi Masua's bucket to open the second half increased the lead to three, but Diaz accounted for the next seven IUP points to put the Crimson Hawks up 37-33.
It stayed close with the teams exchanging the lead several times. Neither team was able to hold a lead larger than four until IUP led 59-53 on back-to-back 3-pointers from Glover with 5:41 to play.
Clancy's 18 points, seven rebounds, and three assists to give him 500 for his career, and Vescovi's 17 points led the way for the Mountain Cats. Magestro finished with 11 points, Masua had nine points and a team-high 10 rebounds, and
Olando King, Jr. pulled down seven rebounds.
Clancy currently stands in 11
th-place on the Mountain Cat All-Time Scoring List (1,385 points), third on the assists list (500), and fifth on the 3-point field goals list (221). Vescovi is 15
th-place on the Pitt-Johnstown Scoring List with 1,293 points.
Pitt-Johnstown shot 38% (23-61) from the field and 6-21 from 3-point range, and got the job done from the free-throw line, hitting 13-15, compared to IUP's 4-10 from the charity stripe. The Crimson Hawks also shot 37% (25-68) from the floor and 9-30 from behind the 3-point line.
Glover had a game-high 21 points and Diaz collected 15 points and a game-high 12 rebounds to pace the Crimson hawks.
With the loss, IUP had its seven-game winning streak snapped and slipped to 18-6 overall and 14-3 in the PSAC West.
Pitt-Johnstown returns home to celebrate Senior Day as part of a PSAC doubleheader with the women's team against California (PA), Saturday afternoon in the Sports Center, before hosting a conference doubleheader against Seton Hill on Wednesday.
