With a chance to climb up the Great Midwest Athletic Conference standings, the Central State men’s basketball team defeated perennial conference power Kentucky Wesleyan on Saturday, 64-62.
With the win, the Marauders have put together a string of three consecutive victories for the first time this season and are now tied in the loss column for the top spot in the G-MAC.
Kentucky Wesleyan, which had a 9 game winning streak snapped in a 1 point loss to Cedarville on Thursday, led the entire 1st half. KWC’s leading scorer Ken-Jah Bosley had 9 points to help give his team a 34-23 lead at the break. The CSU shooters struggled to connect in the first stanza, converting just 29% from the field and managed just 1 basket from beyond the arc.
“Things weren’t going our way in the first,” CSU Head Coach Joseph Price said. “We were able to hang around in the first and kept ourselves in the game with good defense.”
The momentum shifted in the second as the Marauders went on a 11-0 run capped by a fast break layup from Masceo Harmon at the 13:07 mark to give his team a 42-38 lead. Kentucky Wesleyan managed to keep pace and came back to tie the game(55-55) on a CJ Blackwell layup with 3:50 to play. Tre’ Edwards came back down on the other end to score to put CSU back up by 2. Forward Raheem Lemons delivered a crowd energizing put back dunk at the 1:40 mark to give the Marauders a 4 point lead. A layup by KWC’s Patrick Neel cut the lead back down to 2. Free throw shooting proved to be crucial down the stretch with CSU unable to put the Panthers away due to a 3-6 performance in the last 1:23 of the game. Bosley had a chance to tie the game for the Panthers from the line but failed to convert the first attempt. Forced to foul, KWC sent Jeremy Brown to the line. Brown made 1 of 2 with 4.6 seconds left. The ball found its way into KWC’s CJ Blackwell, who’s potential game winner from half court came up short at the buzzer.
“Our focus all week was on this game,” Masceo Harmon said. “We managed to stay strong through the ups and the downs of the game and came out on top. This is a huge win for our team.”
Harmon scored 15 of his game-high 21 points in the second half to go along with 6 rebounds and 4 assists. Lemons racked up 12 points and 13 rebounds. Brown finished with 11 points and 2 steals. Tre’ Edwards finished with a game high 3 steals to go along with 9 points. Central State’s game against Kentucky Wesleyan on Saturday (13-3; 3-0) is scheduled for a 4 pm tip-off.
CSU, which does not have a player over 6’5 in its rotation, managed to outrebound a much longer Kentucky Wesleyan team 39 to 37. The Marauders also held an edge 38-26 edge in points in the paint.
Kentucky Wesleyan fell to 13-4 overall with a 3-2 mark in the conference.
Now at 10-6 overall and 3-1 in the G-MAC, the Marauders will head to West Virginia to face Salem International on Thursday.
This article originally appeared on MarauderSports.com.
