The season that Youngstown State started with so much promise came to an anti-climatic conclusion as the Penguins struggled to find their stride in a 62-54 loss to Detroit.  YSU celebrated Senior Day for players and cheerleaders before the game.  The festivities were short-lived as the Penguins trailed the Titans for most of the game.

Detroit was controlling the post game early.  With 11:27 left in the first half, Vytas Sulskis hit a pair of free throws to cut the Titans lead to 11-10.  Detroit’s Donovan Foster drove and nailed a soft kiss off of the glass to vault Detroit back to a three-point lead.

With 3:32 left in the opening half and Detroit holding a 25-19 lead, Ashen Ward buried a three for the Penguins.  After a Titan bucket, DeAndre Mays drew contact on his way to the hoop.  Mays would hit the pair of charity tosses to cut the lead to 27-24.  Thomas Kennedy was tough for Detroit in the first half with nine points as the Titans held a 31-26 lead at the intermission.  Vytas Sulskis was high-point man for Youngstown State with seven.

Kelvin Bright had a thunderous right-handed slam off of a nice feed from Mays to pull Youngstown State to within four at 41-37.  Detroit would score the next five points of the game to open up a nine-point lead at 46-37 with some help from Penguin turnovers.

With 8:57 to go in the game, Detroit jumped out to a 15-point lead.  Bright drove the lane and hit the floating finger roll to cut it to 13.  Youngstown State had a couple of good defensive possessions.  In one instance, Xavier Keeling was driving and released a prayer in the paint as he was falling that happened to go in.  On the next possession, Detroit got a bad-angle shot off with two seconds on the shotclock that didn’t hit anything.  As bad luck would have it, a Titan was right there to catch and release a layup off of a rebound as the 35-second clock expired.  Coach Slocum just threw his arms in there and his body language would say ‘what do we have to do’.

More bad luck for Youngstown State as Detroit had the worst free-throw percentage in the Horizon League coming into the game but were 17-20 through the first three quarters of the game, and finished 22-32.

With 3:37 left in the contest, Detroit had a commanding 57-43 lead in which everything seemed to be going their way.  Too much Detroit on this day as YSU bowed 62-54.

DeAndre Mays paced the Penguins with 13 points in his final Beeghly Center YSU home game.  Kelvin Bright chipped in with 11.  Mays (pictured) talked about his last home game.  “I wish it didn’t go down like this, but we have to make a push to do well in the tournament.” 

Detroit was sparked by Kennedy who finished the game with 15. With 32 trips to the free throw line, it is hard to compensate when your team only has fourteen chances, and that, combined with sloppy play spelled doom for the Penguins.

Coach Jerry Slocum had mixed emotions about Tuesday’s upcoming Horizon League Tournament game with Green Bay.  “We did not play very good today.  That [Detroit] is probably the hardest card in the league for us to matchup with because they are so big, just not good size matchups at all for us.”  Pertaining to what the Penguins could take with them into the conference tournament, Slocum reminded all, “The four games before this we battled with Butler, lost to a hot Valpo team, and lost two games at the buzzard to Wright State and UC Riverside.”

Senior Rebecca Sturgiss (above) cheers her last game on Senior Day.  Senior basketball players DeAndre Mays, Sirlester Martin, Kelvin Bright, Zack Rebillot, and Dallas Blocker played in their final home contest.  The men will travel North to face Green Bay in the opening round of the Horizon League Tournament on Tuesday night.  Good luck to all Seniors affiliated with a very well-run program.