Mont Alto wins in front of their home fans

It's been rough sailing for the Penn State Mont Alto men's basketball team after starting the season with two straight wins.

The Lions were hoping to snap a five-game losing streak Tuesday night against Penn State Schuylkill. In the process, Mont Alto was aiming for a 3-0 home record.

Both things happened as the Lions overcame a sluggish start to defeat Schuylkill 67-54.

"It was a good win," said Mont Alto head coach Jack Schenzel. "It evened us up in (PSUAC) play.

"We've struggled. Our last five games we played five quality opponents, and three of them were NCAA Division three teams — four-year schools with experienced teams. We're a pretty young team. We start a couple freshmen. (Tuesday) we started three freshmen and two sophomores. So, it's tough when you're starting that young team against four-year players who are juniors and seniors."

Waynesboro's Derek Null was one of the freshman starters, along with Xavier Montague and Tyree Maeser. Maeser, who went to South Hagerstown High School, scored 13 points.

Mont Alto led 6-5 thanks to three-point field goals by Cameron Bowen and Daniel Smay. But Schuylkill ran off nine straight points to take a 14-6 lead before Montague made a jump shot to put the brakes on Schuylkill's momentum.

After Schuylkill's Patrick Killian scored to make it 16-8, Mont Alto began a slow but steady comeback, beginning with another Smay three-pointer. Kevin King followed with a layup and after Schuylkill scored back to back field goals, Mont Alto scored seven of the next nine points to cut the margin to 20-19 — punctuated by a three-pointer from Jeffrey Bowie — with 9:07 to play in the first half.

Trailing 24-22 with 4:07 remaining in the first half, Mont Alto's Bowie — who scored 16 points off the bench — made a layup to tie the score. After Maeser garnered one of his four steals on the night, Bowie converted the turnover into points with another layup to give Mont Alto the lead at 3:35.
Schuylkill tied the game on a layup by Malcolm O'Neil, but the home Lions scored the final two buckets to end the scoring in the first half with a 30-26 lead.

"In the first half I thought we played a little ragged," Schenzel said. "We let them defensively kind of move us out of what we wanted to run. So, at halftime, we really stressed to them to let the offense work, let the game come to you. You'll get shots in our offense and the guys executed our offense.

"There was a stretch we ran the same play six straight possessions and scored every time."

Mont Alto came out firing in the second half. A jumper by Bowen made it 32-26 a little over a minute into the final 20 minutes. Then, Smay drained another of his three treys.

From there, the Lions maintained control the rest of the game. They built an 11-point lead on a jump shot by Smay at 14:01, and following a mini-run by Schuylkill, Mont Alto regained a double-digit lead on a three-pointer by Bowie at 12:13.

Mont Alto's lead continued to swell, growing to 16 points on a three-pointer by Maeser with 7:22 to play on up to 19 points on a Kenfrod Lynch layup with 1:08 left in the game.

"We gave up 20 points in the first 12 minutes and then gave up 34 points in the final 28 minutes," Schenzel said. "We are a defensive first team. We've stressed that from the first meeting on Aug. 29 until now. We have to set the tone on defense every possession."

Mont Alto (2-5) outrebounded Schuylkill 40-37 and won despite committing 31 turnovers, compared to 18 for Schuylkill. However, Mont Alto scored 26 points off turnovers and converted on 15 second-chance points.