SCHUYLKILL HAVEN - After gamely attempting to overcome a 23-point halftime deficit, Penn State Schuylkill's men's basketball team learned a hard lesson in its 95-82 loss to Penn State Brandywine on Tuesday night.
"I told the kids, 'The difference between college and high school is you could lose a game in three minutes. That three-minute span could be your demise,' " Penn State Schuylkill head coach Travis Williams said. "That kid's little three-point run, that seemed to be the one tonight."
"That kid" was Penn State Brandywine sophomore Frank McCusker, who torched the host Lions' defense for 25 first-half points, including five 3-pointers, which launched the visitors to a 57-34 halftime edge.
Penn State Schuylkill cut the gap to nine points with 44 seconds remaining, but could get no closer and so joined the Penn State Schuylkill women with an 0-2 mark, including 0-1 in the Penn State University Athletic Conference.
Penn State Schuylkill's women's team fell 78-38 in the opening game of the doubleheader.
In that game, five players for Penn State Brandywine scored in double figures, but in the men's game, the 6-foot-5 McCusker put PSU-Brandywine (2-4, 1-0) squarely on his back, which brought back some fond memories for his head coach, Stuart Ross.
"We had two All-Americans who could do a lot of those same things last year," Ross said. "He (McCusker) was more of a role player last year. We always knew he had the ability to do it, so it was nice to see him do it and put it all together."
But that offensive explosion lasted for only one half. McCusker was held to three points in the latter half, which enabled Penn State Schuylkill to eventually outscore Penn State Brandywine by 10 points in the period.
Noting McCusker was the focus of the halftime talk, Williams said, "We were mentioning something about it even in the first half, but we came out and said we had to get a hand up on the kid. The biggest thing was taking the opportunity of shooting away from him and chasing him off the 3-point line."
With that largely accomplished, Penn State Schuylkill
immediately began to trim the gap by answering the visitors' press with points.
"It's called a blitz trap, where you come over halfcourt and they try to blitz the ballcarrier and then fill the lanes," Williams said. "We run that in practice, and we were kind of ready."
However, it took the entire half for Penn State Schuylkill to cut the gap to nine, 91-82, on Matt Greene's free throw with 44 seconds left.
But PSU-Brandywine, which added 18 points by James Fisher and 12 by Pat McGee, tallied the final four points.
Five players scored in double figures for Penn State Schuylkill. Kenford Lynch scored 23 points, while Nate Yost posted 14, Michael Stewart had 13, Davon Gaskins scored 11 in his first game of the season and Thomas Tinsley posted 10.
Penn State Schuylkill's women lost despite 14 points and 18 rebounds from Shenandoah Valley graduate Molly Carduff. In addition, Schuylkill Haven graduate Sarah Celani led the hosts with 16 points.
"I'd seen the boxscore against Central Penn and I'd seen the big girl (Carduff) had 33 points, so we wanted to hold her to 14 points today," PSU-Brandywine head coach Larry Johnson said.
Doing that, PSU-Brandywine (2-2, 1-0) also scored the game's first 10 points and 27 of the first 35 to take command.
Olivia Encarnacion led Penn State Brandywine with 15 points, while Amanda Congialdi had 13, Lauren Munro tallied 12, Jessica Gledhill scored 11 and Jillian Gledhill added 10.
Penn State Schuylkill, still missing guard Dominique Grasso because of her broken nose, was hampered by 33 percent shooting in the game.
But head coach Mike Donley was more concerned about the squad's intensity.
"We just need to be more mentally tough, especially defensively," he said. "We have to think we can stop people every time down the floor. Right now, we're lacking that."