Men's Basketball Falls Short Against La Roche on Junker Center Floor

The Penn State Behrend men's basketball team came up short against visiting AMCC opponent La Roche, losing 52-48 on Saturday, February 13 in front of 466 fans at the Junker Center.

The first half began with the La Roche Redhawks sprinting to a quick 14-6 lead.  Behrend responded with a 12-4 run to tie the game at 18-18 with 4:31 to go before the break.  The Behrend Lions capitalized on ten La Roche turnovers in the first half creating extra possessions for the blue and white, closing out the half with a 9-3 run to take a 27-21 lead into the break.  Russ Conley (Transfer/Reynolds) led the home squad with nine first-half points including a spectacular alley oop dunk off a perfect pass by Justin Kovac (Venetia/Peters Township) in the closing minute of the half. 

Behrend looked good to start the second half, scoring four straight on layups by Kovac and Adam Potter (Pittsburgh/Mt. Lebanon) to quickly push the score to 31-21 at the 17:33 mark, which would be Behrend's biggest lead of the game.  The Redhawks began chipping away and would tie the game at 37-37 with 7:39 to play before taking the lead on a layup by Mike Dixon with just under seven minutes remaining.  La Roche led by as much as five down the stretch before Behrend tied the game at 44-44 on a Conley layup with 1:24 to play.  La Roche's Andy Tressler then came up with an offensive rebound and putback to put his team on top for good, as the Redhawks would make 6-of-7 free throws in the final 23 seconds to clinch the win.

Behrend made just 23% from long range (3-of-13), while La Roche shot 6-of-14 from behind the arc (43%) and outrebounded Behrend 34 to 23 in the game.  Conley finished with a game high 17 points and was the lone Behrend Lion in double figures as Potter finished with nine.

The Behrend Lions are now 14-7 overall and 11-6 in the AMCC.  La Roche improves to 11-12 overall and 8-10 in the conference.  Behrend has three conference games remaining before the AMCC Tournament begins.  The blue and white will host D'Youville on February 15 and Hilbert on February 17 before they take to the road at Penn State Altoona on February 20 for the final game of the regular season.