PSAC Men's Basketball Athletes of the Week - 14
PSAC Men's Basketball Weekly Release - Feb. 23
A pair of familiar faces are this week's honorees for the PSAC East Player and Freshman of the Week awards, as Kutztown's Stephen Dennis and Bloomsburg's Larry Webster captured each respective award for the third and fifth times this season, respectively. Gannon's Kyle Goldcamp, meanwhile, won his first PSAC West Player of the Week award of the season after a standout week, while California (Pa.)'s Kelsey Williams is the PSAC West Freshman of the Week for the third straight week and fifth time overall this year.
PSAC Players of the Week - Feb. 23
PSAC East Player of the Week
Stephen Dennis, Kutztown
G, Jr., West Chester, Pa./Henderson
Dennis earns his third PSAC East Player of the Week award of the season after averaging 24.5 points, 6.5 assists and 4.5 rebounds last week for Kutztown, which ran its winning streak to 11 games and clinched at least a share of the PSAC East title with wins over West Chester and Shippensburg. He also contributed 2.5 blocks and 2.5 steals per game while shooting 53.3 percent from the field (16-for-30) and an impressive 84.2 percent from the foul line (16-of-19). Against West Chester, he scored 26 points and had four boards, four assists and five blocks. He followed that up with 23 points, nine assists and five rebounds against Shippensburg. His efforts helped the Golden Bears set a school record for overall and PSAC East wins.
PSAC East Freshman of the Week
Larry Webster, Bloomsburg
C, Fr., Elkton, Md./Elkton
For the second straight week and for the fifth time overall this year, Webster is this week’s PSAC East Freshman of the Week. He averaged 12.0 points and 14.5 rebounds as well as 1.5 blocks in a pair of losses for Bloomsburg last week. He netted five points but pulled down 12 boards, including eight offensive, against the Red Raiders. He then scored 19 points and hauled in a career-high 17 rebounds with two blocks in a two-point loss to Millersville.
PSAC West Player of the Week
Kyle Goldcamp, F, Gannon
F, Sr., Pittsburgh, Pa./Central Catholic
Goldcamp helped lead Gannon to a 3-0 week by averaging 22.3 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game last week to earn his first Player of the Week award this year. He recorded double-doubles in two of Gannon’s three games last week. Last Monday in a non-conference game against Lake Erie, he went for 15 points and 11 rebounds in just 19 minutes. Then, on Wednesday against Edinboro, he posted his 13th career double-double at Gannon, going for 23 points and 11 rebounds. He then wrapped up the week by scoring a career-high 29 points on Saturday against IUP in a battle for first place in the PSAC West. Goldcamps, who shot 62.5 percent from the field (30-for-48) and 70 percent from the free throw line (7-for-10) for the week, has scored in double digits in 19 straight games dating back to last year, with the exception of 11 games he missed this year due to injury.
PSAC West Freshman of the Week
Kelsey Williams, California (Pa.)
F, Fr., Sandusky, Ohio/Sandusky
Williams earns his fifth overall PSAC West Freshman of the Week award and his third straight after helping California stay in contention for a PSAC playoff berth with a 1-1 week. He averaged 15.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and shot 50 percent from the field (14-for-28). He scored 12 points and grabbed four rebounds while battling foul trouble in a loss to IUP and followed that up with 18 points, eight rebounds and two blocks in a come-from-behind victory over Edinboro, making 9-of-18 field goal attempts in the victory.
PSAC Team Notes
Bloomsburg Huskies
The Huskies close out the 2008-09 season with home games against Mansfield and Kutztown … Larry Webster had his second double-double in the last three games with 19 points and 17 rebounds against Millersville ... Senior Drew Jerrry was two points shy of his career high when he scored 16 points against the Marauders ... Jerry is now seventh on school's all-time list for assists with 280. He needs just six more over the last two games to move into sixth place ... The Huskies have made seven three-pointers in three of the last four games.
California Vulcans
Cal U split a pair of games last week against PSAC West rivals IUP and Edinboro with the two games being decided by a total of three points … Against the Crimson Hawks, the Vulcans rallied from down seven points in the final minute to fall 60-58 after a potential game-tying jumper bounced off the rim … On Saturday, Cal U rallied from a 16-point halftime deficit in the second half to tie and win the game, 73-72, with a traditional three-point play by junior guard Jerial Nixon with only 6.4 seconds remaining … Cal U made all three of field goals in the final two minutes and allowed Edinboro to make only one-of-four shots down the stretch … Nixon finished with a game- and season-high 24 points in the win after drilling a season-best five three-pointers … The Vulcans collected 20 assists on 30 field goals in the victory
Cheyney Wolves
Hakeem Townsend scored a career high 24 points and set a school record with eight three pointers to lift Cheyney to a 67-64 victory over East Stroudsburg ... Townsend scored 15 of the Wolves first 19 points, all three-pointers, hitting five of his first six shots ... Dominique Curry became the newest member of the 1,000 point club on the Wolves first points of the second half when he drained one of two free throws ... Curry ended the game with 14 points. Tyrone Smith came off the bench for the first time this season and added 11 as Cheyney rookie head coach Dominique Curry started five seniors in their final regular season home game in Cope Hall. Earlier in the week, the Wolves fell at home to Millersville 61-59. Kevin Presbery tallied a career high 18 points ... Townsend hit a three-pointer as time expired but it was ruled to be after the final buzzer ... The Wolves have clinched a playoff spot for the third consecutive season.
Clarion Golden Eagles
Senior forward Josh Yanke scored his 1,000th career point and his 1,000th point at Clarion Wednesday vs. Mercyhurst. Yanke, who scored 15 points as a freshman at Gannon, has 1,030 career tallies including 1,015 at Clarion. He is the 26th player in school history to score 1,000 career points. Yanke then followed that up by grabbing his 500th rebound at Clarion Sunday. He has 506 rebounds at Clarion and 523 in his career. He is the 20th player at Clarion to get 500 rebounds. He is also the 14th player with 1,000 points and 500 rebounds … Freshman Aaron Trail hit 13 of 15 free throws Sunday. The 13 free throws are the most by a Golden Eagle since Terrance Vaughns hit 13 vs. Slippery Rock in 2006 … The overtime loss to Slippery Rock broke a 4-game overtime win streak for the Golden Eagles. Clarion is 1-1 in overtime this season and 6-3 since 2005.
East Stroudsburg Warriors
ESU held off Mansfield, 75-71, on Wednesday before falling 67-64 at Cheyney on Saturday ... The win over Mansfield was the 100th career victory for head coach Jeff Wilson ... ESU and Mansfield are tied for the fourth spot at 6-6, but ESU holds the tiebreaker due to its win over Kutztown on Jan. 14 ... Sr. F Chris Bach scored 7 of his 18 points in the final 2:01 of the game ... Bach had 20 points at Cheyney ... Bach has 984 career points between his three years at ESU and freshman year at Philadelphia U (1996-97) ... Top 5 in Division II with 152 made free throws ... Top 5 in PSAC in scoring (19.2), rebounding (8.8) and blocks (2.1) ... Jr. G Andy Heimbach had 157 career 3's, five away from the school record, and made five 3's and scored 19 points vs. Mansfield.
Edinboro Fighting Scots
Losses to Gannon and California(Pa.) mean Edinboro has now lost three games in a row for the first time since 2005-06 ... In addition, the Fighting Scots have now lost four straight games at McComb Fieldhouse for the first time since the 2002-03 season … Joe Jones was held under double figures in both games after reaching double digits in all 23 games this season. Jones scored nine points in both games, but still moved into eighth place in career scoring with 1,402 points. In addition, he now has 535 points for the season, good for tenth place all-time … Chris Bess matched his career high with 17 points at Gannon, despite almost arriving late for the game. The junior was recognized as Edinboro's Ebony Man of the Year that same evening, and was driven to the game by his parents following the banquet. He arrived less than a half hour before the tipoff and was in the starting lineup.
Gannon Golden Knights
Gannon, ranked No. 8 in the February 17th NCAA Division II top 25 poll and No. 3 in the February 18th Atlantic regional rankings, was perfect in three games last week against Lake Erie (76-41), Edinboro (79-62), and IUP (69-64) ... The Golden Knights have been listed among the nation's top 10 teams in a school-record 12 consecutive polls ... Senior Kyle Goldcamp has reached double digits in all six games since his return to the court and has accomplished the feat in 19 consecutive games dating back to last season with the exception of the 11 games he missed this season due to an injury ... He averaged 22.3 points and 9.3 rebounds last week, while posting double-doubles in two games and scoring a career-high 29 points against IUP ... Gannon clinched a PSAC Tournament berth during its first season in the league against Edinboro with head coach John T. Reilly's 300th career victory.
IUP Crimson Hawks
IUP completed only its third regular season sweep over California in the past 24 years and reached the 20-win mark for the first time since 2004-05 with a 60-58 win on Wednesday… IUP has won 20 or more games 15 times in its history … The Crimson Hawks then dropped a narrow 69-64 decision at Gannon on Saturday … The loss to the Golden Knights was the fifth of the season for IUP, with four coming at the hands of teams ranked in the Top 25 including two to Gannon and one to Pitt and Alderson-Broaddus … Gerald Brooks scored 14 points versus Gannon and became the 24th player in IUP history to score 1,000 career points, finishing the game in 23rd place with 1,009 … With Gannon likely to win the PSAC West, the winner of the Saturday's IUP-Slippery Rock game will earn the No. 2 seed and host an opening round game in the conference playoffs.
Kutztown Golden Bears
Kutztown clinched a share of the PSAC East title, its second straight and third overall ... KU set program records with its 22nd overall and 11th PSAC East victory vs. Shippensburg ... The overall wins breaks the previous record set in 1987-88, while the previous division record was set three times, including last year ... Head coach Bernie Driscoll tied KU's career record for coaching victories with 136 on Saturday ... With his next victory, he will pass Walt Risley (1945-63) for the record ... Dave Ben needs needs 45 points to set KU's single-season scoring record (598, Marty Eggleston, 1987-88) and 12 field goals to break KU's career record (628, Lock Jennings, 1989-93) ... Stephen Dennis (1,388 pts.) needs 27 points to move into KU's top-five career scoring leaders ... Andre Woodlin needs 65 points for 1,000 career ... KU will host a PSAC quarterfinal for the third straight season March 3 ... KU looks to complete a perfect 14-0 home regular-season record vs. Cheyney Wednesday.
Lock Haven Bald Eagles
Lock Haven (4-21, 2-10 PSAC West) went 0-2 last week with two road losses ... Despite the losses, teams still can't find a way to stop senior Billy Arre (Pittsburgh/Thomas Jefferson), who is averaging a team-best 18.7 points-per-game. With his game-high 35 at Mercyhurst, Arre runs his impressive career total to 2,063 points, which is sixth-best on the all-time PSAC list ... Warren Christian (Baltimore/Catonsville C.C.), a junior-college transfer playing in his first season with the Bald Eagles is seeing quality minutes with 11.3 pts/gm and a team-high 7.4 rebounds-per-game.
Mansfield Mountaineers
The tough-luck Mounties have dropped four straight games to fall to 6-6 in the PSAC East and into a tie with East Stroudsburg for the fourth and final playoff spot … Three of those four losses were decided in the final 30 seconds of the game … Senior Chris Greene scored a season-high 20 points against West Chester … Mansfield is almost in a must-win situation in their final two games at Bloomsburg and against Millersville to advance to the PSAC playoffs.
Mercyhurst Lakers
Mercyhurst snapped a five-game losing streak, its longest since 2004-05, with a 95-38 victory over Lock Haven in the Lakers final home game of the season … The 95 tallies represented the highest Mercyhurst point total since defeating Point Park in 2002-03 by a 102-68 decision. Junior Nnamdi Nnadili capped off a stellar week with a career-high 27 points against the Bald Eagles, one game after tying his career high of 26 at Clarion … The 69-66 loss at Clarion eliminated the Lakers from the conference postseason tournament, snapping a streak of three consecutive appearances (GLIAC tournament) … During that three-year run, Mercyhurst won its first-ever NCAA postseason victory in 2005-06 with a 59-54 victory over Wayne St … Other notables this week included Iddo Cohen tying a career-high in blocks with five at Clarion in his first start of the season … Anthony Terry posted a new best in rebounds (6) while tying his career-high with five assists against Clarion.
Millersville Marauders
Millersville won two games during the week, marking the fourth time this season it has won consecutive games. After a season-long seven-game skid, the Marauders have won four of their last six ... Millersville has shot over 42 percent from the field in all four wins but under 40 percent in both losses. Both wins were by just two points, and Millersville is now 5-6 in games decided by 10 points or less this season ... Makal Stibbins and Brandon Widener were the lone players to score in double figures in both games ... Since Jan. 11, Widener has scored in double figures in six of the 10 games he has played ... Stibbins has scored 10 or more in 23 of 25 games and has done so in 12-straight. Prior to this season, Stibbins had scored 10 points in a game just once ... Against Bloomsburg, Millersville totaled eight steals, marking the seventh time it has totaled at least that many this season.
Shippensburg Red Raiders
Shippensburg (12-13, 4-8 PSAC East) edged Bloomsburg on Wednesday with a stellar rebounding performance before losing to Kutztown … On Wednesday, center Derrick Graff had the best individual rebounding performance in 12 years, grabbing a career-high 19 boards for Shippensburg and becoming the first player to go for 19 and 19 in a game since Wayne Morris on Jan. 4, 1997 … Wednesday night's performance marked the most rebounds in a game for Shippensburg in a 375-game span … On Nov. 27, 1995, the Red Raiders had 60 rebounds in a 97-93 triple-overtime loss to Pittsburgh-Johnstown … In that game, Kevin Lee had 44 points and 21 rebounds while current Raider assistant coach Mike Nestor had 11 points, six rebounds and four assists … On Saturday, Kutztown became the first opponent to total triple digits against the Raiders since November of 2000 when Bloomsburg had a 107-66 victory over Shippensburg.
Slippery Rock - The Rock
Kyle Camper set a new SRU single-season assists record and is two handouts away from a new PSAC mark after he helped on 12 baskets Saturday at Clarion. Camper now has 271 assists this season. The old Rock record was 259 by Brent Schempf in 1993-94. The PSAC mark is shared by Edinboro's Adam Kaufman (1997-98) and California's Darnell White (1993-94) ... The Rock's overtime win at Clarion, coupled with Indiana's loss to Gannon, moved SRU into a tie with Indiana for second place in the PSAC-West standings and sets up a huge head-to-head duel Saturday afternoon between the Green and White and the Crimson Hawks in Morrow Field House. First, though, The Rock must travel to California to face Vulcan team that still entertains hopes of earning a conference tournament berth ... Denell Stephens averaged 22.0 points and 7.5 rebounds per game in only 22.5 minutes of playing time last week.
West Chester Golden Rams
West Chester split its two contests last week, but moved into sole possession of third place in the league standings as the Golden Rams look to end a two-year hiatus from the postseason by qualifying for the PSAC tournament … Kenneth St. George is close to 1,000 career points.