Penn State Hazleton Holds On To Defeat Penn State Schuylkill
Leading by two points, Penn State Hazleton took advantage of a missed layup with 5 seconds left in the game and added a free throw to hold off Penn State Schuykill and win the game 83-80 last night in a game played at the Dr. Thomas M. Cacesse Gymnasium in Hazleton.
Playing for the first time in over ten days, in a game that was back and forth and chippy from start to finish, the Hazleton Penn State Nittany Lions held off a come from behind attempt by Penn State Schuylkill to take an 83-80 win in PSUAC Conference play. With the win, Hazleton evens up it's conference record to 3-3 and improves to 4-8 overall on the season. Schuylkill drops to 4-5 in the conference and 6-9 overall. Hazleton was led by big Brandon Mohammed who had a monster game in the paint scoring 24 points and hauling down 15 rebounds as well as sinking a free throw with five seconds remaining in the game to push the lead to three points with barely no time remaining on the game clock. Robbie Hopkins added 20 points, Jonathan Fogarty added 17 points while Nick Nowak tossed in 14 points. Kody Jacoby continued to have the hot hand for Schuylkill scoring 24 points while teammate Khari Thompson added 21. Schuylkill's David Graham and Lamonttea Brown scored 16band 10 points respectively to round out the double figure scorers.
Mohammed led all scorers in the first half with 19 points as Hazleton held an 8 point lead, 41-33. The game see-sawed back and forth in the second half the the score being tied or the the lead changing multiple times. Down by two points with 2:25 left in the game, Hazleton's Aaron Kellmer hit a trey to put his team on top 77-76. Free throws by Hopkins and Fogarty extended the lead to 79-76 but a layup by Thompson with 1:49 closed the gap to 79-78. Fogarty added a layup at 1:19 to increase the lead to 81. Thompson added another bucke at the :25 mark to pull Schuylkill bact within two, but Nowack hit a free thow at the :19 mark to make it 82 and after a missed layup attempt by Schuylkill at the five second mark, Mohammed hit a free throw to seal the win.
Hazleton outrebounded Schuylkill 46-37, but Hazleton turned the ball over 22 times to Schuylkill's 14. The teams were close to even in Field goals with Hazleton holding a 48% to 45 edge over Schuylkill while both teams were even in 3-point shots at 24%.
Hazleton will now travel to Penn State Wilkes-Barre Tuesday night for an 8:00 start for Wilkes-Barre's Senior Night.