Beaver Takes Road Loss Against Penn State New Kensington

By: Evan Pinchot

New Kensington, Pa -- The Penn State Beaver basketball traveled to Penn State New Kensington for their final road game this season. With only two games left this season, Beaver is out of playoff contention and has been on a downhill skid in their last four games. Coming into their matchup against New Kensington, Beaver looks to take down a good opponent and hopefullly end their season on a positive note to take into next season. 

Both teams started this game off with a slow start, as it took two minutes for Beaver to put up the first points in the game. For the next tem minutes of play, neither team would be able to figure out their offense and the game turned into a slow back and forth between the two sides. However, New Kensington would be the first team to break out of their funk as they went on a 27-10 run in the last 9 minutes of the first half. During those last 9 minutes, Beaver seemed out of sync, missing a lot of shots and turning the ball over too much. As the game rolled into halftime, Beaver found themselves down 43-23 with a lot of adjustments to make. 

The second half of play showed a much better Beaver team, as they came out looking much more energized and focused. The team, that had only managed to shoot 22% from the field in the first half of play, shot an impressive 51% from the field in the second half as they outscored New Kensington 49-39. However, because of their slow start, Beaver wouldn't be able to overcome their 20 point deficit from the half even with their impressive showing in their second half of play. At the end of it all, Beaver walked away from this game with their fifth loss in a row, falling by a final score of 82-72. 

After their loss to New Kensington, Beaver now sits at 9-15 overall on the season while dropping to 5-10 in conference play. The team was led in this game by the play of Freshmen Dominique Stevenson (Rochester, NY / Ithica), who tallied 15 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 steals in the losing effort. With the PSUAC playoffs offically out of reach, Beaver will look to finish the season with a win at home on Saturday, February 11, against Penn State Greater Allegheny. Game time is set for 7 pm.