Beaver locks down conference road win against Lehigh Valley, 75-67

By: Matylda Zamudio

Allentown, Pa. – The Penn State Beaver men's basketball team dominant first-half performance helped take down PSUAC rival Penn State Lehigh Valley 75-67 on Friday night.

Freshman guard Keon Butler (Annapolis/Star Severn School) led Beaver's scoring list with a game-high 27 points and four rebounds followed by both freshman forward/center Jeremy Redwine (Merced) and PSUAC Player of the Week junior guard John Foster (Austin/Del Valle), who each contributed 16 points apiece.

1st half: Butler set the tone early for Beaver, sinking a 3-point jumper less than a minute in (3-0). At 13:44, a steal by Redwine got the ball back in Butler's hands to sink another 3-pointer which he then followed up with a layup 14 seconds later (12-9). At 4:42, Beaver started to pull away with a double-digit lead over Lehigh Valley thanks to Foster and Butler combining for back-to-back shots from behind the arch (34-20). With only 45 seconds left in the first half, Foster rounded out the scoring for Beaver, with a late 3-pointer to help Beaver led by 12 at halftime (41-29).

2nd half: At 18:49, Butler made a layup to build Beaver's largest lead of 17 points (46-29). However, Lehigh Valley immediately responded with 9 unanswered points to cut Beaver's lead down to only 8 points (46-38) and then down to only a single point at 12:48 (48-47).  At 12:02, the Lions took back control of the game with Redwine and contributing back-to-back 3-pointers for Beaver to build back a two-score lead (54-47). The game remained close, but down the stretch, Butler sunk a late 33-pointer to give Beaver a 13-point edge (74-61) at 1:03 and then go on to take down Lehigh Valley by a final score of 75-67.

Box Score Highlights: Beaver outshot Lehigh Valley 50 percent to 40.7 percent from the field and 54.5 percent to 25 percent from behind the arch. Beaver also shot 73.3 percent from the line, hitting 11-15 shots from the charity stripe.

With today's win against Lehigh Valley, Beaver is now (7-4) in the conference standings with an 11-6 overall season record. Beaver is on the road in their next game against conference rival Penn State Brandywine on Saturday, Jan. 26. The game is slated for 3 p.m.