Beaver Falls, PA - It appeared that Geneva College had Saint Vincent right where it wanted them after 20 minutes on Saturday night. Leading by ten points and Geneva′s leading scorer sitting on the bench for most of the half with foul trouble. But the Bearcats had different ideas as they outscored Geneva 46-23 in the second half and snuck out of town with a 79-66 victory handing Geneva only its second home loss of the season. Geneva fell to 15-6 on the season while Saint Vincent improved to 15-6 including two wins against Geneva on the season.
Geneva shot 45% from the field in the first half including a perfect 4-4 from the field from David Phillips, three of which came from beyond the three-point arc. The Golden Tornadoes held Saint Vincent to only 11 first half field goals in building a 43-33 lead at the break. "We put ourselves in a really good spot at halftime," said Geneva head coach Jeff Santarsiero. "We told our guys at the half that they were going to come out charging and we just simply didn′t respond. We played maybe our worst half of the season at a very inopportune time."
As quickly as Geneva had built its ten point lead, Saint Vincent wiped it off the books as it took less than six minutes for the Bearcats to reclaim the lead and they never looked back. In the second half, Geneva made only eight field goals and shot 38% from the field. Saint Vincent, on the other hand, shot 54% from the field in the final 20 minutes and added 15 offensive rebounds for the game. "They are very athletic and we knew that coming in but again we just didn′t respond well when they starting making a run. It′s really the first time all season that we couldn′t close out a game that we had in our favor in the first half."
Saint Vincent swept the season series from Geneva after having defeated the Golden Tornadoes in Latrobe earlier in the year. Turnabout is fair play as the Golden Tornadoes had taken both games from Saint Vincent a year ago.
Drew Santarsiero came off the bench to lead Geneva with 15 points while Richard Colick added 14 in the loss. Lambros Svingos posted 13 points and six rebounds while Phillips ended the game with11 points, all of which came in the first half.
The good news for Geneva is that it won′t have time to think about the loss as it goes right back to action on its home floor on Monday night when Penn State Beaver comes calling for at 7:30 pm tip-off.
Geneva College is a comprehensive Christian college of the arts, sciences and professional studies. Founded in the tradition of the Reformed Christian faith, Geneva prepares students to serve Christ in all areas of society: work, family and the church. Geneva College′s philosophy of education is based on the Foundational Concepts of Christian Higher Education. Geneva is a founding member of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU).
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