Joe Batt scored a game-high 18 points to help the Pitt-Johnstown men's basketball team turn a six-point first half deficit into a 22-point second half lead on its way to a 78-68 win over West Virginia Wesleyan in Saturday's final round of the IUP Classic. The Mountain Cats are now 1-1.
Batt's 18 points six rebounds, and six led four Pitt-Johnstown players who scored in double figures.
John Paul Kromka had a double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds, while
Caiden Landis scored 12 points and
Drew Magestro added 10 points and five assists. The Mountain Cats also got nine points from
Josh Wise and seven points from
Marcin Wiszomirski.
Landis and Kromka combined to score Pitt-Johnstown's first 10 points to give the Mountain Cats an early three-point lead, but West Virginia Wesleyan answered with a 14-5 run over the next three minutes to take a 21-15 lead on Clay Todd's layup at 12:18.
Pitt-Johnstown came back to outscore the Bobcats 14-4 and regain the lead. Wisomirski's basket gave the lead back to the Mountain Cats, and a Batt 3-pointer at 7:09 closed the run and put Pitt-Johnstown on top 29-25.
Edward Flohr hit a 3-pointer that gave West Virginia Wesleyan a two-point advantage with just over five minutes left in the half, but the Mountain Cats used a
Josh Wise 
jumper and a late Kromka free-throw to take a 37-33 halftime advantage.
The Mountain Cats got a 3-pointer from Magestro and a basket in the paint from Landis to increase the lead to 46-37 four minutes into the second half, before Batt's layup and free-throw pushed it into double figures at 53-42.
Pitt-Johnstown continued to pull away.
Jared Jakubick's 3-pointer made it a 20-point lead 10:02 to play and the Mountain Cats went on to the 10-point win.
Pitt-Johnstown shot 48% (29-61) from the field while holding the Bobcats to just 39% (21-54) shooting. The Mountain Cats were 7-23 from behind the 3-point line and 13-23 from the free-throw line. West Virginia Wesleyan hit 8-24 from behind the arc and 18-25 from the charity stripe.
Dusan Vicentic's 16 points and game-high 13 rebounds and Luka Petrovic's 1`0 points paced the Bobcats, who fell to 0-2.
Pitt-Johnstown will make its 2019-20 home debut with a non-conference game against Carlow on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Sports Center, before hosting a non-conference game against Ohio Dominican on Saturday at 3 p.m.
