Balanced Effort Gets Lions Past Juniata in Home Opener
ALTOONA, Pa. – Steady offense and strong defense led the way for Penn State Altoona men's basketball on Tuesday night, when the Lions won their home opener 78-64 over local non-conference foe Juniata College in the Adler Arena.
Penn State Altoona (2-1) had four players score in double figures while shooting 52.5 percent from the field as a team, including 64.0 percent in the first half. At the other end of the floor, the Lions held Juniata (0-2) to a 34.2 percent field goal success rate and blocked 10 shots.
"Awesome way to start our home season, getting a victory over a local rival with great tradition, such as Juniata has. It was an amazing effort by everybody that played," said Penn State Altoona head coach David McGreal. "When you play a team in such a short turnaround, scouting is difficult, so we decided to play a lot of zone so that we wouldn't have to worry about scouting their man-to-man, and it seemed to work pretty well."
The Lions' Dwayne Jones (Philadelphia, PA/Greater Johnstown) finished with a double-double and sniffed a quadruple-double, leading all players in the game with 17 points, 14 rebounds, eight blocks, and seven assists. Jones' total of eight blocks ties the Penn State Altoona men's basketball single-game blocks record, sharing the top spot with former Lion Cameron Gardner-Nicholson.
Jalen Martinez (Brooklyn, NY/New Hope Academy) provided 16 points off the bench for Penn State Altoona, and Kal-El Gentles (Austin, TX/San Juan Diego) finished with 15 points, seven rebounds, and seven assists, tying Jones for the game-high in helpers. Kaden Claar (Portage, PA/Portage) chipped in 11 points, two steals, and two blocks.
"We had some amazing individual performances, with Dwayne coming close to a quadruple-double, Kal-El almost having a triple-double, and Jalen coming off the bench," said McGreal. "It was also nice to see Kaden hit a big shot late against his former team in the second half that pretty much sealed it. Those guys were all big sparks for us."
Juniata got 15 points apiece from Mason Hardy and Ayden Hurley.
A Jones layup on the game's first possession opened the scoring, and two baskets by Gentles extended Penn State Altoona's lead to 6-0. Juniata clawed back to tie the score at 10-10 on a Hurley three-pointer, then grabbed a one-point lead at 14:16 on Jayden Bilger's foul shot. But the Lions responded with a 10-0 run, capped by a Martinez three-pointer that gave the home team a 20-11 lead at 9:59.
A three-pointer from Braelen Cage (Lorton, VA/Hayfield Secondary), layups from Martinez and Claar, and two Jones free throws helped increase Penn State Altoona's advantage to 16 points, 31-15, with 6:39 left in the half. Points from Hardy and Hurley late in the period helped the Eagles get back to within seven, and the Lions took a 39-32 lead into the intermission.
Penn State Altoona got a layup from Gentles and three-pointer from Nehemiah Frye (King George, VA/King George) early in the second half to get its lead to 10 points, 44-34, and an Abiah Charles (Orlando, FL/Wekiva) trey at 16:13 made it 47-36. However, Juniata ripped off an 8-0 run, getting threes from Hurley and Hardy and a layup by Tyler Lapetina to trim its deficit to 47-44 by the 15:23 mark.
The Eagles continued to hang around, and Penn State Altoona held a 59-56 advantage with 7:50 on the clock. But the Lions managed to outscore Juniata 19-8 the rest of the way to end with a comfortable victory.
Martinez's layup and foul shot at 5:20 gave Penn State Altoona an eight-point advantage, and five points from Jones made it 71-60 by the 4:37 mark. Claar nailed a three-pointer at 4:01 to give the Lions a 74-60 lead, and the home team added two Gentles free throws and a Jones dunk to make it 78-60 with 2:45 to go.
Penn State Altoona finished the evening with statistical advantages over Juniata in rebounds (42-38), assists (22-13), points in the paint (48-32), fastbreak points (19-10), and bench points (21-14).
Next up, the Lions play one more home game before returning to the road for the rest of the month. Penn State Altoona hosts new Division III program Regent University this Friday, November 15, at 7 p.m., before traveling for its final three games of the month.
"Now we'll rest and recoup to get ready for a scrappy Regent squad on Friday. Go Lions!" said McGreal.
