Lions fall short against Mont Alto

By: Matylda Zamudio

MONT ALTO, Pa.–– The Penn State Beaver men's basketball team suffered another loss this week against PSUAC rival Penn State Mont Alto on the road Friday night, 87-65.

Senior guard John Foster (Austin/Del Valle) led Beaver in scoring with a game-high 22 points, six rebounds, three assists, two steals and one block. 

Sophomore forward/center Jeremy Redwine (Merced) picked a double-double tonight with 20 points, 11 rebounds, one steal and one block.

Freshman guard Alexander Avery (Stafford/Brooke Point) also finished with 8 points and one assist coming off the bench.

1st half: Beaver started off strong with Foster banking a shot from downtown only 13 seconds into the first, followed by a senior guard Kevin Louis-Charles (Lawrenceville/ Central Gwinnett) scoring a layup to put the Lions up 5-0 at 19:11. At 16:47, Foster scored 7-straight points to put Beaver up by 6 (14-8) but Mont Alto answered back with 11 unanswered points to take the lead away at 19-14. Redwine cut it to 2 on a 3-point play to put Beaver within striking distance of reclaiming the lead at 23-21, however the Mont Alto men started to put some distance between them and Beaver as they hit a late 3-pointer down the stretch to pull ahead by 10 and prompted a 10-0 run, which garnered a 15-point deficit for Beaver before halftime (50-35). 

2nd half:  The Lions struggled as they return from the break as they turned the ball over two times while allowing Mont Alto to rack up 11 points three minutes into the second (61-35). Avery got Beaver back on the scoreboard with a layup on an assist by Louis-Charles at 17:01, but the Lions started to struggle once again with turnovers with a total of five over six minutes while only putting up 2 points to bring the deficit to 75-39. At 8:31, Avery drilled a shot from behind the arc, which Redwine matched directly after, followed by a layup from junior guard Keon Butler (Annapolis/Star Severn School) to cut the deficit to 26, but Beaver couldn't get the stops they needed early enough and fell by a final score of 87-65.

Inside the Box: Beaver shot 40.4 percent from the field, hitting 23-57, 39.1 percent from 3-point range on 9-23 shots and 62.5 percent from the free-throw line, hitting 10-16 from the charity stripe.

The Lions will have another chance to grab a PSUAC conference win tomorrow, Dec. 7, in their second of this weekend's back-to-back conference road games, where the team will take on Penn State Mont York. The game is slated for 3 p.m.