MILLERSVILLE, Pa.-After clinching a playoff spot last Wednesday night and improving its chances of earning the fourth seed in the PSAC Tournament with a win at Lock Haven on Saturday afternoon, the West Chester men's basketball team (16-9, 10-9) will visit PSAC East leading Millersville (21-5, 15-5) in search of a victory to secure the fourth seed heading into the final game of the season on Saturday afternoon.
SERIES INFORMATION
With over 200 known meetings between West Chester and Millersville and the first meeting being traced back to as far as the 1903 season, the Golden Rams and Marauders have no shortage of history with one another. West Chester enters play holding a 105-99 lead in the all-time series, having won eight of the last 10 games in the series. Recent times have shown the momentum starting to shift back to the Marauders, as Millersville has taken two of the last three meetings vs West Chester including the first meeting of the 2021-22 season series, giving Millersville its first victory inside Hollinger in nine years.
In the first meeting against Millersville, West Chester fell behind early, trailing 8-0 in the early stages and by as many as 14 points later in the first half before closing the deficit to 10 points heading into the halftime break. In the second half, West Chester continued its comeback, using a 16-0 run to eventually take a seven-point lead near the midway point of the second half. This lead did not last as Millersville answered back and started a back-and-forth contest over the final minutes of play. West Chester took its final lead of the game with under a minute to play but it was Millersville who scored the final points of the game from the charity stripe to escape with a 73-72 victory.
Kyle McGee (Jersey City, N.J./St. Mary's of the Assumption) led West Chester in scoring in this game, finishing with 14 points as one of five Golden Rams in double figures in the setback.
FLOCK TALK
In contrast to the last time West Chester faced Millersville, which saw the Golden Rams looking to halt a tough-luck losing streak, West Chester enters play on Wednesday evening having won each of its last four games, including a pair 25+-point victories over that streak. On Saturday afternoon at Lock Haven, West Chester persevered through a back-and-forth first half of basketball, taking an 11-point lead in the second half before Lock Haven started its comeback attempt. Lock Haven surged back and cut the Golden Ram lead to just three points in the waning seconds. Lock Haven missed a three-point attempt, which would have tied the game and failed to get an offensive rebound after going 1-of-2 at the line following a foul on the ensuing rebound, as West Chester led by a career-high 24 points and eight rebounds from
Elijah Allen (Dover, Del./Dover) escaped with an 87-83 victory. As a team, West Chester shot 42.9 % from the field and 36.8 % from three-point range while also shooting 85.7 % from the line to earn the victory.
West Chester's four-game winning streak has been made possible by a balanced attack from the Golden Ram offense as a different Golden Ram led the team in scoring in each of the three victories last week and only Allen has repeated as the team's leading scorer during the course of this four-game winning streak. Since returning to action against Mansfield in Mid-January, Allen has been an important piece for West Chester leading the team in scoring in three games this year, all of which have been wins along with seven double-digit scoring efforts, including a pair of 20+ point performances. Freshman
Robert Smith (Philadelphia, Pa./Bishop McDevitt) who had a red-hot start to the season, remains the Golden Rams leading scorer in the final week of the season, averaging 14.7 points per game while
Matt Dade (Collegeville, Pa./Episcopal Academy), who has been the most consistent, scoring in double figures in 20 of 25 games, is second on the team, averaging 14.1 points per game.
While West Chester knows it will have a chance to play for a Conference Championship when the PSAC Tournament begins next Monday night, the locations remain an open question. In the final games of the season, West Chester needs a win in one of its last two games or a loss by Shepherd in one of its last two games to guarantee itself the fourth seed in the PSAC Tournament and avoid any potential tiebreaker scenarios.
MARAUDER MENTIONS
While West Chester finds itself in need of a victory to secure the fourth seed, Millersville finds itself in a similar position in terms of needing a victory as the Marauders are currently tied with East
Stroudsburg atop the PSAC East at 15-5 in league play.
In its most recent game, Millersville visited Shepherd last Wednesday evening and suffered a fate that many teams have upon visiting Shepherdstown, falling to the Rams by a 89-71 final, putting an end to the Marauders 12-game winning streak. In this contest, Shepherd raced out to an early lead, taking a 45-27 lead into the halftime break, which allowed the Rams to withstand a run by the Marauders in the second half as the two teams finished the half even with 44 points apiece, allowing Shepherd to earn a convincing 89-71 victory. Ryan Davis led Millersville in scoring, finishing with 18 points while James Sullivan added 14 of his own in the setback. As a team, Millersville shot 45.5 % from the field and 30.8 % from deep after shooting just 18.8 % from range in the first half. Millersville also ended the game shooting 76.5 % from the line but it was Shepherd's red-hot shooting effort, which spelled doom for Millersville as the Rams shot 61.1 % from the field and 55.0 % from three in the upset victory.
UP NEXT
West Chester returns home on Saturday afternoon for its final regular season home game of the year vs East Stroudsburg beginning at 3 p.m.
