Chris Raimondi—Sports Editor
Nigel Pruitt went 6-10 from 3-point range and finished with 29 points to lift the Kennesaw State men’s basketball team to a 90-84 win over Youngstown State in KSU’s first true road win of the season on Wednesday night.
The Owls traveled to Youngstown, Ohio without head coach Jimmy Lallathin, personal reasons, and played without their pair of injured big men Willy Kouassi and Nate Rucker. Justin Diecker, freshman, started at the center position for KSU and redshirt freshman Jordan Jones played a career-high 26 minutes and recorded 10 rebounds, six points and a game-leading four blocks.
“We showed great character tonight,” associate head coach David Rivers said “We had excellent minutes off the bench from Jordan Jones. The Owls played inspired basketball. The win was dedicated to our head coach Jimmy Lallathin and his family.”
Both sides got off to a hot start offensively with each team shooting over 50 percent in the first half. Neither team was able to surmount more than a single digit lead in the first 20 minutes. Pruitt and Yonel Brown scored 17 and 14, respectively, and combined for 5-9 from the 3-point line. Brown finished with 18 points and eight assists. KSU jumped out to its biggest lead of the first half after a Jones fast break layup made it a seven point contest at 44-37 with a minute remaining before halftime. The half ended 46-41 in favor of the Owls.
Youngstown left five free-throws on line in the first half and only managed to go 1-5 from behind the arc.
KSU got off to a quick start in the second half and established a 10 point lead at the 17:23 mark after Delbert Love made a 3-pointer to make the score 55-45. Love scored 19 second half points and finished with a line of 24 points, five assists and seven rebounds.
The Owls never trailed in the second half. KSU went 15-27 from the field and shot above 40 percent from 3-point range while converting 9-12 free-throws. The largest lead of the game for the Owls came at the 10:19 mark when Pruitt sunk a 3-pointer and made it an 11 point contest.
The Penguins were able to close the gap to four with 17 seconds remaining, but a pair of Pruitt free throws iced the game and KSU walked off the court with a 90-84 revenge victory after falling to Youngstown at home in last year’s 73-57 season opening loss.
With the win, the Owls move to 4-7 on the season, while the Penguins are 7-6. The next game for KSU is Saturday Dec. 20 against UMBC in the Convocation Center at 3 p.m.
