PSU Hazleton Goes Cold Late and Loses to PSU Brandywine

Penn State Brandywine outscored Penn State Hazleton 31-4 over the final 11 minutes of their Penn State University Athletic Conference basketball game and ran to a 80-59 victory on Friday night. The loss stopped a two game winning streak by Hazleton and now drops them to 6-11 overall and 5-6 in the PSUAC while the Brandywine win qualified them for the coference playoffs for the first time since the 2012-13 season.

Jonathan Fogarty led the Hazleton contingent with 18 points and 8 rebounds, Brandon Mohammed had his second straight nice game scoring 16 and Robbie Hopkins added another 11 points for the locals.  Ameer Staggs carried Brandywine with 20 points and 8 rebounds assisted by Donte Winfield's 14 points, Quentin Beasley's 12 points, and Terrence Brown's 11 points and 11 rebounds. 

Brandywine led through the entire first half, posting its largest lead of the stanza when Chima Lawrence drove for a layup to make the score 26-12 with 7:24 to go. Hazleton answered with 11-straight points and 16 of the final 22 during the half, including a long three-pointer by Hopkins just before the buzzer, to pull within four at intermission. 

Hazleton continued to surge early in the second, taking its first lead when Hopkins buried a triple at the 17:30 mark. The Local Lions' lead increased to eight points with 13 minutes to go and stood at 55-49 after Hopkins connected on another three-pointer with just over 11 minutes remaining, however the remainder of the game would belong to Brandywine. Following a timeout, Brandywine reeled off 10-straight points in a span of 3:07 to retake the lead. Jonathan Fogarty sank a layup with 6:17 to play to end the run and make the score 60-57 in favor of Brandywine, but then the host team limited their guests to one field goal the rest of the way, closing the game with a 20-2 outburst. When the final horn sounded Hazleton found themselves on the down side of an 80-59 score.

Brandywine made the most of their opportunities from the foul line shooting 89% of their free throws hitting 16 of 18 tries as well as running the court and scoring 23 points off of the fastbreak. Hazleton won the battle of "in the paint" points outscoring Brandywine 36-28.  The tale of the stat book comes in finding Brandywine shooting 46% from the field, while holding Hazleton to 38% shooting overall and the game fatal 2-of-18 cold spell during the final 11 minutes.

Hazleton finds themselves back on the road again Saturday afternoon traveling to the Lehigh Valley to face Penn State Lehigh Valley in a game scheduled for a 7:00 PM tipoff at Lehigh University's Stabler Area.