Men win back-to-back blowouts, improve to 4-2
November 20, 2019
The men’s basketball team came back with a vengeance this weekend, blowing out Penn State-New Kensington and Bryant & Stratton-Buffalo back to back.
After last weekend’s trip to Miami, where the Pioneers went 1-2, the team came back with a mindset of domination at hand.
In Friday’s game at Penn State-New Kensington, Point Park had total control, blowing out the Nittany Lions 99-63.
Penn State only led one time during the entire game, scoring the opening bucket before the Pioneers grew their lead quickly into the double digits.
Point Park scored 45 points in the first half and 54 in the second, with five different players putting up double digits in the game.
Simultaneously, the Pioneers held the Nittany Lions to only 24 points in the first half, and held down their shooting to under 40 percent from the field throughout the game.
The men also dominated the boards, more than doubling Penn State’s rebounding 47-to-21.
On Saturday, the men came back home and once again dominated, defeating Bryant & Stratton-Buffalo 102-86 in another high scoring affair.
The game was close when it entered the 10-minute mark of the second half, but Point Park was able to pull away as the game came to a close.
The Pioneers shot 59 percent from the field, and hit more than 45-percent from the 3-point line.
Sophomore guard Sherron Schifino led both games in scoring, dropping 19 and 29 points between the two games, and only missed two shots in the game against Bryant & Stratton.
“My mindset was just to play my game and make my shots when my teammates created them for me,” Sherron said. “My coaches just put me into the right state of mind before the games and I just played my game.”
Between both games, Point Park was able to keep opponents to just 37 percent from the field, while shooting well over 50 percent in both games.
“During the time off, Coach [Lewandowski] wanted us to focus on two things,” junior forward RJ Fairrow said. “One was getting as many shots as possible, and the other being tightening up our defense.”
After back-to-back games during their road trip in Miami of shooting less than 40-percent, the team bounced back. The team now averages 49 percent from the field and a little over 80 points per game, ranking 26th out of 140 teams in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).
The Pioneers are also now fourth in the River States Conference (RSC).
“We do a bunch of shooting and defensive drills in practice,” sophomore forward Kameron Shockley said. “Coach [Lewandowski] makes sure we are always in the right spots on defense no matter what.”
The team has yet another long break to look forward to, as they won’t have another game until Nov. 23 and then yet another break until Nov. 30. Both games will be away, with the first game at Salem University in West Virginia, and the second being at Malone University in Ohio.
