Penn State Wilkes-Barre Uses Balanced Attack To Bury Penn State Hazleton

On a night when Penn State Wilkes-Barre celebrated the careers of their seniors, the entire team got into the action and overpowered Penn State Hazleton 77-48.  The Nittany Lions of Wilkes-Barre used a balanced attack, utilized a deep bench, rode hot shooting hands and dominated the paint to take the lopsided victory over Hazleton.  With the win, Wilkes-Barre improves to 11-6 overall and 7-2 in the conference while the loss drops Hazleton to 4-9 on the season and 3-4 in the conference.

Hazleton's Robbie Hopkins led all scorers with 16 points while teammate Aaron Kellmer tossed in 14 points and pulled down 10 rebounds.  Wilkes-Barre was led by Jordan Williams 15 points and got double digit contributions from DeAndre Monroe (14 points) and Ameer Biddle (10 points).  Wilkes-Barre spread the wealth when they had 11 different players score to get into the books on the night.

After scoring to open the game, Hazleton would not enjoy a lead for the rest of the night. Wilkes-Barre came back down the floor with a vengance as they proceeded to light up the score board quick and often through the half.  They pushed the lead to double digits at the 15:46 mark and pushed the lead to 19 points by the end of the first half with the score sitting at 43-24.  The second half began as the first with Wilkes-Barre coming out of the locker room with the hot hand and entending their lead.  While Hazleton never gave up the fight, they couldn't make up the ground lost in the first half, with Wilkes-Barre's lead extending to 38 points at the seven minute mark of the second half.  The local lions kept pace in the second half, but by the time the final buzzer sounded the rout was over.

With Wilkes-Barre holding the upper hand on the scoreboard, they also owned most of the stat columns.  They doubled up Hazleton's field goal numbers, 47% to 27% as well as out rebounding the local lions 47 to 31.  Wilkes-Barre also dominated Hazleton in two other areas of the game, outscoring them 46 to 16 in the paint and getting 43 bench points to Hazleton's 11.

Hazleton returns to action Friday night traveling across the state to play conference rival DuBois with tip off slated for 8:00 PM.