Box Score
WASHINGTON, Pa. (Feb. 17) – The Waynesburg University men’s basketball team out-scored Washington & Jefferson in the second half of their Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) showdown on Wednesday. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to erase a 10-point halftime deficit and the Yellow Jackets dropped the contest by the final of 84-75.
The Jackets end the PAC portion of their schedule with an 0-12 mark and drop their overall record to 2-20. W&J is now 11-13 on the season and 6-5 in conference play.
The home team opened the contest on a 12-5 run and didn’t trail for the rest of the game. The Presidents opened up leads as large as 12 points on multiple occasions before going to the locker room with a 45-35 advantage.
Thanks to a 7-2 run over the first three-plus minutes of the second half, the Jackets were able to cut the Presidents’ advantage to just five points (47-42). However, several productive scoring runs put the home team up by as many as 24 points (76-52) before closing out the victory.
Though it came in a losing effort, Waynesburg got an outstanding performance from senior guard Ryan Courneen, who tied for the game high in scoring with 24 points on nine-of-17 shooting. Junior Erik Noone added 14 points to the Jackets’ efforts, while freshman point guard LaVance Turnage, Jr. chipped in 10.
W&J’s Paul Matthews matched Courneen with 24 points and was one of five different Presidents to reach double digits in scoring.
The Yellow Jackets wrap up the 2009-10 regular season on Saturday, when they host Geneva for senior night.