PITTSBURGH, Pa. – The Pitt-Bradford men's basketball team went on the road and stole a victory from AMCC opponent La Roche College, 71-59.
Pitt-Bradford (13-10, 10-6) was led offensively by junior Eric Matheson (Ridgway/Ridgway) who tallied 24 points in the win for the Panthers.
La Roche (1-22, 1-14) was led by Arnes Bajgora with 20 points in the loss for the Redhawks.
The game started out slow as both teams struggled to put together any kind of offense in the opening minutes until the Panthers went on a 9-3 run capped off by a three-point basket by senior Tyler Fantaskey (Warren/Warren) with 10:10 remaining as the Panther led 16-11.
The Panthers shut down the Redhawks defensively in the first half. The Panther's defense only gave up 23 points in the first half and held the Redhawks' offense to 33.3% from the field.
The Panthers were led by sophomore Zach Smith (Smethport/Smethport) who contributed 10 first-half points for the Panthers as they led 30-23 going into the locker room.
The Panthers started out the second half on a 10-2 run, which ended by a La Roche three-point bucket by Andres Abreu.
A strong defensive effort for Pitt-Bradford allowed them to run away with the lead early in the second half. The Panthers forced the Redhawks to turn the ball over 14 times throughout the course of the game and converted 24 points off of the Redhawks' turnovers.
La Roche battled back with a 14-2 run as they converted on multiple three-point opportunities that ended with 9:59 remaining in the game to cut the Panther's lead down to 48-43.
The Redhawks kept it interesting in the final minutes of the game, not going down without a fight. However, the Panthers were able to burn precious minutes off the game clock with a few key offensive rebounds.
Pitt-Bradford was able to regroup and keep its lead over the Redhawks as the Panthers converted down the stretch to take an AMCC victory on the road, 66-58.
After the game, Pitt-Bradford head coach Britt Moore said, "Good win on the road. We played better defense than in previous games."
The Panthers will travel to Medaille on Wednesday, February 18th at 8 p.m.
