Box Score
BEAVER FALLS, Pa. (Feb. 19) – The Waynesburg University men's basketball team saved one of its best performances of the year for Saturday night's regular season finale at Geneva.
The Yellow Jackets snapped a 12-game losing streak and avenged an 81-66 loss from earlier this season by downing the Golden Tornadoes 80-70. With the win, the Jackets improved to 6-19 on the year, while Geneva dropped to 17-8 for the season.
After trailing 35-33 at halftime, Waynesburg enjoyed its best shooting half of the 2010-11 season. The visiting team connected on an impressive 61 percent of its tries from the floor (14-of-23) and made five out of eight attempts from beyond the three-point line.
After the halftime break, the Jackets jumped out to a three-point lead (39-36) thanks to a 6-1 spurt that included four-straight made free throws. Geneva regained the lead at 49-47, but Waynesburg rebounded with an 11-3 run to build up a 58-52 advantage with 9:10 showing on the clock.
The Jackets never trailed from that point on and built up leads as large as 13 points (78-65) with 1:12 remaining in the regular season finale. Waynesburg's bench played a big role in putting the game away, out-scoring Geneva's reserves 16-9 in the second half.
Not only did the Yellow Jackets out-perform their opponents from the floor, but they also put together better numbers from the free throw line. The visitors made 15-of-23 attempts from the charity stripe, while the Golden Tornadoes managed to connect on just nine-of-19 tries.
Freshman point guard Nick Herman had his biggest game as a collegiate player. The first-year point man went off for a season-high 19 points on six-of-nine shooting and added six rebounds to his night's work. Junior forward Lou Galante added 16 points over just 16 minutes off the bench, while junior forward Jeff Young added 13 points and a team-high eight rebounds. The Jackets received a fourth double-digit scoring effort from senior guard Steven Iser, who chipped in 10 points to the winning effort.
With the regular season concluded, the Waynesburg men will try to carry the momentum from this most recent win into the postseason, which tips off next week. The Yellow Jackets, the number-eight seed in the upcoming Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) tournament. They'll travel to Greenville on Tuesday to face top-seeded Thiel at 7 p.m.
