Youngstown State University has not had the best of luck when facing Detroit in Horizon League Basketball games.  The Penguins dropped their last four contests to the Titans.  Things were different Saturday night.  YSU didn’t look like a tribe of dwarves looking up at a gang of giants.

The other thing Detroit did not have was Ray McCallum.  The 2012-13 Horizon League Player of The Year skipped town on his old man for a beach house in Sacramento and a job playing for the Kings of the NBA.

To make things better, the Penguins were sporting some brand new uniforms (see photos).  They work.  YSU 77, Detroit 63.

“We are 1-0, so they work”, said Cole.

The Penguins opened up the game with a 9-4 spurt, but trailed 19-17 with 7:36 left in the opening half.  With 6:47 left, DJ Cole was fouled driving to the hoop and converted a pair of free throws to tie the game at 19.  After a Penguin turnover and a Titan bucket, the Kamren Belin hit the second of two free throws.

Solid defense by YSU then set up a shot clock violation against Detroit.  With just under four minutes in the half, Kendrick Perry exploded to the hoop and scored to hand the Penguins back a 22-21 lead.  The Penguins, behind seven points from Perry, held a 28-26 lead at the intermission.

In the second half, YSU started to pull away.  Cole was a definite catalyst both shooting and passing, as well as, hustling.  With 11:54 left in the game, the Penguins were ahead 47-39 behind Cole’s eleven second half points.

“They were getting tired, so we kept running”, said Cole.  “We really didn’t make any adjustments at the half, but our shots were just falling.”

The Penguins would maintain  51-47 lad with nine minutes left in the game.  Perry scooted the baseline on a nice reverse layup to stake the Penguins to the four point margin.  Coming out of a timeout, Ryan Weber nailed a three to put the ‘Guins up seven, 54-47.

Weber would hit another three for the sixth consecutive Penguin point.  Bobby Hain, reacting to the pep band’s chants of “Bobby, Bobby”, responded scoring the next five points to build the lead to 14 points at 66-52, but with 4:45 left in the game Juwan Howard, Jr. collected his 19th point to keep Detroit around.

“Typical Hoizon League, 40-minute bloodbath”, said Coach Jerry Slocum.  “We shared the basketball.  I thought that Kam {Belin} and Ryan {Weber} did a really good job tonight.”

With four minutes left in the game, Cole stole a pass on the Detroit end and threw an outlet to Perry streaking up the left side.  Perry was fouled hard and the refs were back at the video monitor.  The result was a flagrant one foul (two shots and the ball- courtesy Kyle Kroynovich).

The Penguins (12-8, 3-2) were lead by Cole who notched 22 points, a career high.  Rising folk hero,Hain added 18 and Kendrick Perry added 12.

Detroit got 20 from Howard.