YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (Nov. 27, 2010) – Youngstown State's hot start prevented the Saint Francis men's basketball team from gaining any momentum in defeating the Red Flash 91-63 on Saturday night at the Beeghly Center.
Senior
Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy) (Zagreb, Croatia / Life Center Academy) made 8-of-15 shots from the field for a team-high 18 points, while sophomore
Will Felder (Cleveland, OH/Lutheran East Hs) (Cleveland, Ohio / Lutheran East) had 9 points and 7 rebounds, for Saint Francis.
Vytas Sulskis had a game-high 22 points, while Kendrick Perry had 19 and Devonte Maymon had 15 for the Penguins.
SFU dropped to 2-4 on the season, and will now turn its attention to Northeast Conference play as it will head to St. Francis-NY for Thursday night's league opener.
Joe Vesnesky and
Bernie Jubeck will have the call on The EDGE 1400 AM, and a link to listen will be available at www.myedgeradio.com.
“I am real, real disappointed,” said Saint Francis head coach Don Friday. “In order for us to become a better basketball team, we need to find a way to avoid defensive lapses like we had tonight. We fought hard, but we have to get better. Tomorrow is a day off. Our coaching staff and I will get together and figure out a way to get us back to making winning basketball plays.”
After Youngstown State, which improved to 4-1, took a 40-25 lead into halftime, the Red Flash fought back to within 10 points. However, the Penguins offense shot 69.6 percent in the second half to pull away.
Junior Jon Taylor (Bowie, Md./Montgomery College-Germantown) (Bowie, Md. / Montgomery College) had a season-high 6 points and 3 rebounds, sophomore Umar Shannon (Atlantic City, N.J./Atlantic City) (Atlantic City, N.J. / Atlantic City) had 7 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists, and sophomore Chris Johnson (Newport News, Va./Denbigh) (Newport News, Va. / Denbigh) added 6 points, 4 rebounds and 2 steals.
Youngstown State didn't wait long to get started. It missed several shots from the field to start the game, but went on a 17-2 run to take advantage of several SFU mistakes. Dan Boudler made a layup with 3:08 left to give the Penguins their largest lead at 38-18. The Red Flash battled back to 15 at the half, 40-25, behind 14 points from Jukic.
Jukic was 6-of-10 from the field in the first half and pulled down three rebounds. He was the only SFU player with more than one field goal in the stanza.
Perry and Sulskis had 13 and 11 points, respectively, for Youngstown State. The Penguins shot 40.0 percent (14-of-35) from the field, while Saint Francis was 10-of-29 (.345). The Red Flash had 13 turnovers in the half, while YSU had just five.
For periodic men's basketball updates on Twitter, follow Director of Athletic Communications Bob Volkert at SFUVolkert.
