Clarion University Men’s Basketball Wins Home Opener Over Carlow

Chris Rossetti

Chris Rossetti

Published November 24, 2014 5:18 am
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McFaddenCLARION, Pa. — A late-game 12-3 run helped lift the Clarion University men’s basketball team to a 77-69 win over visiting Carlow in the home debut of first-year head coach Marcess Williams Sunday afternoon at Tippin Gym.

(Photo: Tyrone McFadden)

“It feels real good,” Williams said. “Our guys competed. I didn’t think we played super well. But, we played well enough to win. We love teaching, coaching lessons with wins. We just have to make sure we keep on and keep getting better.”

Clarion (2-2), which led 36-32 at halftime, found itself leading by just a point ,64-63, following a layup by Carlow’s Zach Talley with 4:15 to play.

But the Golden Eagles answered the Talley score with the late spurt that saw four points each from Darius Stevens, Kyheim Hall and Tyrone McFadden to take a 76-66 lead with 49 seconds left.

All three players were instrumental in the victory with McFadden tallying a Clarion career-best 11 points including a 5 of 6 performance from the free-throw line, and Hall and Stevens each recording double-doubles.

Hall had a team-high 18 points to go with a game-high 12 rebounds while adding three steals and an assist. It was his second consecutive double-double.

Stevens added 15 points, 10 rebounds, two blocks and two steals while recording his second double-double in three contests.

“This is the second game in a row for Kyheim, so that is a bright spot,” Williams said. “He’s coming. He twisted an ankle early on in the season and kind of had a slow start to it. He is starting to really come along.

“Darius should be getting double-doubles every night. That is what we expect to get out of him.

BJ Andrews added 12 points and a career-best eight rebounds for the Golden Eagles, who also got seven points apiece from freshmen guards Brandon Williams and Cameron Grumley. Williams added four steals, three assists, two blocks and two rebounds, and Grumley had three steals, three assists and a rebound.

Clarion forced 27 Carlow turnovers, the third time in four games its has forced at least 20, and turned those giveaways into 25 points, which was right on its season-average of 32.5 percent of its points coming off turnovers. The Golden Eagles had 20 steals in the game with nine different players recording a takeaway.

Carlow got a game-best 19 points to go with seven rebounds from Charlie Scharbo, while Zach Taylor added 17 points and 11 rebounds, Talley 12 points, four rebounds and four steals and Miles Sunder 10 points and seven boards.

The Celtics forced 21 turnovers themselves but converted them into just eight points.

Carlow led for a good portion of the first half of the first half getting the lead up to as many as 5, 15-10, with 12:18 left in the half before a 21-7 run that saw Stevens scored six points and Justin Grant four put Clarion ahead 31-22 on a Ralph Naples layup with 3:21 left before halftime.

The Celtics, though, didn’t fold responding with a 10-2 run that closed the gap to one, 33-32, on a Scharbo layup with 36 seconds left. Grumley, though, nailed a three with seven seconds remaining to put the Golden Eagles ahead by four, 36-32, at the break.

Clarion got the lead to seven, 47-40, six minutes into the second half, but Carlow came right back closing the gap to one three times before finally tying the contest at 60 on a Sunder layup with 6:49 to play. But Sunder missed a free throw that would have put the Celtics in front, and McFadden hit a layup followed by two free throws in between a free throw by Austin Matta, to move the lead back to three, 64-61, with 4:41 left.

Talley answered with the layup to make it a 1-point game, but layups by Stevens and Hall and two free throws by McFadden expanded the lead back to seven, 70-63, with 2:31 left.

Clarion returns to action at 2 p.m. Wednesday when it hosts Central Penn.

NOTES – Neither team shot well from the free-throw line with Clarion going 14 of 30 (46.7 percent) and Carlow hitting 8 of 18 (44.4 percent).

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