Penn State-Fayette outmanned
Penn State-McKeesport placed five players in double figures on its way to an 87-56 win over Penn State-Fayette in a Western Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference men’s basketball game Wednesday night at Fayette Campus. Michael Terry led the McKeesport scoring parade with 17, while Kellen Lovejoy and Ed Drummond added 15 each. Cornell Mack scored 14 off the bench and Mike Moser added 13 for coach Tim Keefer’s balanced attack.
Fayette got 19 from Belle Vernon graduate Ray Mickens, 14 from Charleroi’s Nathan Black and 13 from Jefferson-Morgan’s John Fowler, but it was hardly enough for coach Budd Grebb’s out-manned team.
McKeesport improved to 7-8 overall and 5-5 in WPCC games, while Fayette has yet to win through 12 games (nine conference).
The Roaring Lions are down to only six players, while McKeesport dressed 12. To say Fayette ran out of gas would be an understatement. In fact, Grebb couldn’t help but make a gasoline analogy in explaining the lopsided loss.
“We’re running 87 (octane) and they’re running 93,” Grebb said.
Grebb had predicted that his team would hang with McKeesport for about 15 minutes, then tire and fall behind. His prediction was off, but only by about five or six minutes.
After Fowler scored a three-point play in the first minute of the second half to cut McKeesport’s lead to 41-31, the visitors ran off 13 consecutive points and it was all over.
Grebb was not happy, but he wasn’t angry with his players, either. Quite the opposite.
“I can’t ask more of these guys,” Grebb said. “We made mistakes, sure, but am I happy with them? Yes, based on what we have and what I get out of them.”
Keefer, in his first year as McKeesport’s coach, was pleased with his team’s performance and managed to paint a better picture for the future of all of Penn State’s branch campuses.
“We’re getting better,” he said. “We work hard. We weren’t ready to play at the beginning, but we played through it.”
Speaking of Grebb and his program, Keefer said, “I respect Buddy a lot. We go back to junior high school days. He’s trying to start a program and so are we. We have more depth than they do right now, so we ran the ball a lot.”
Keefer said McKeesport has another huge advantage over Fayette in that it has on-campus dormitory living, which is a great recruiting advantage.
“But they have a beautiful campus here and it will grow,” Keefer said.
“Next year, we’ll all be four-year schools, plus we’re going to have our own conference of campuses. We’re also looking into going to (NCAA) Division III. So, things are looking up for all of us.”
Grebb may not be able to see it just yet, but there does appear to be a light at the end of the tunnel.