Penn State Scranton Cruises to a Dominant Win Over Hazleton

By Ross Turetsky

Hazleton, PA- On Tuesday night, Penn State Scranton's men's basketball team was hitting on all cylinders, as they captured an impressive 10 point, 89-79, road victory over conference foe Penn State Hazleton. The squad's win was their fifth of the season, third in the all-important conference play, and snapped a brief two game losing streak, after tough set backs against Penn State Schuylkill and Penn State York last week.

After a thrilling, nail biting first half of play left Scranton with a slim one point, 43-42, advantage heading into the half-time locker room, our men's team dominated in the second half, outscoring Hazleton 46-37, as they ran away with a stellar double digit triumph. A major factor to Scranton's success was their hot shooting from the floor all evening long, as they shot a solid 44.9 percent from the field and had five double digit scorers who led the way.

Scranton's assistant basketball head coach, Michael Latrella, was very impressed by his team's well-rounded effort. "Hazleton got off to an early hot start, but we fought back and at one point we were up by 10 points in the first half. They made some shots and we were only up by one at half-time, but our tough man-to-man defense tightened down in the second half and limited them to just one contested shot per possession, as we kept their top scorers in check. We had great scoring, spread out amongst our five double digit scorers, as we hit some big shots. Other key factors in the win were we had a lot more shots than them,78 to 67, as we out rebounded them, 46 to 38, so they didn't get a lot of second chance scoring opportunities against us," said coach Latrella.

Coach Latrella has a very upbeat philosophy going into this all-important final stretch drive of the basketball season. "For our final four games, we are just taking it one game at a time. We already have more wins than last year. So we would love to win a few more games to finish out this season, so we could head into the off-season with a lot of momentum and on a high note. We are fortunate enough next season most of our key players and nucleus are returning and finishing up strong would greatly help us to keep improving going into next season," said coach Latrella.

Scranton was led by the electrifying performances of junior stand-out point guard Matt Dessoye, junior Arel Lamour, sophomore Rob McAndrew, sophomore Corchado Kente, sophomore Melick Lubin, and fellow sophomore Cameron Jordan.

In 38 minutes of play, Dessoye scored a team-high 20 points, to go along with his five assists, four rebounds, and hot shooting from beyond the arc, making four of his nine three point attempts. Lamour notched 18 points, half of them coming from his three long distant shots. McAndrew continued his double-double prowess he has displayed throughout this season, as he put up 13 points and a team-high 14 boards, to go along with his three assists and one steal. Kente came off the bench and put up a stalwart 13 points, to go along with his six rebounds and two assists. Lubin contributed a very efficient 10 points, making four of his five shots he took on the night, to go along with his seven rebounds and four assists. Last but certainly not least, Jordan just missed out on his squad's sixth double digit scorer of the ball game, as he shot 50 percent from the field, 4-8, in his nine point, eight rebound, and two assist performance.

Meanwhile, Penn State Hazleton with the loss dropped to 8-12 on the season, and 8-8 in conference play. The team was led by their three double digit scorers who totaled the vast majority of the team's points on the night, combining to score 52 of their 79 points in the contest. Hazleton was led by game-high scorer Andy Kwiatkowski and his 21 points, to go along with his five rebounds. Brandon Mohammed added a solid 19 points, to go along with eight boards and six assists. Robbie Hopkins tallied 12 points, alongside his four rebounds, five assists, and two steals.

Now with only four games remaining this regular season, all in conference play action, head coach Chris Sload and his Penn State Scranton men's basketball squad will next play Penn State Brandywine, when they travel on the road this Saturday afternoon for a 3 pm tip-off. Meanwhile, head coach Tom McIntyre and his Penn State Scranton women's basketball team will next play this Saturday afternoon as well, when they play Penn State Brandywine at 1 pm. The women's squad will look to snap a three game losing streak, and are coming off of a tough 60-40 road defeat to Penn State Hazleton on Tuesday night that was highlighted by the solid performances of their stand-out juniors, Jessica Berger's team-high 15 points and Danielle Powell's team-high 14 rebounds in the contest.