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Email: "Bald Eagles struggle against West Chester"
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LOCK HAVEN — You might have heard this one before.

The LHU men’s basketball team got a lot of points out of Billy Arre and not many out of anyone else. Because of that lack of a second threat LHU struggled, this time a 69-54 defeat suffered Sunday at the hands of the visting West Chester Golden Rams in Thomas Fieldhouse.

Arre’s 26 points accounted for nearly half of the Bald Eagles’ team total and had the attention of nearly everyone wearing white on the floor, including the West Chester head coach Dick DeLaney.

“We weren’t letting him score,” DeLaney said. “He’s going to score on anybody he plays, he’s that good. We tried a couple of different people on him and then we went to that zone. He started to take over the game a bit there in the second half but we started to clog up on him a little bit and take his looks away.”

Arre’s 26 were accumulated in vain partly because of the foul trouble that Lock Haven found themselves in early on in the game, mainly that of Denny Mortimer. LHU’s only remaining healthy true inside player was tabbed with two quick personals in the opening minutes and before the half was done had four on him already.

That limited what LHU head coach John Wilson, Jr. was able to do with his lineup on the floor.

“We’re a short bench now anyway,” Wilson said. “We had only nine players that were dressed tonight. We’re down to only one natural inside player, which is Mortimer. It was just a situation that West Chester is just a lot bigger than us overall, a lot stronger and they were able to use their size to their advantage.”

The foul trouble wasn’t just plaguing Mortimer. Kelvin McLean went to the locker room at the half with three fouls and two other players had a pair.

Despite all the problems, LHU was able to hang around throughout most of the first half.

Arre had 12 points including a couple of bombs from beyond the arc, but the next leading LHU scorer was Mortimer and Tyrone Palmer, each with just four.

LHU had trouble hitting shots as it went 33 percent from the field and struggled to get many second chances at the offensive end.

West Chester, on the other hand, shot well in the first as they had an impressive 57 percent mark in the first 20 minutes.

“I thought we played pretty consistently at both ends of the floor,” DeLaney said. “I thought that we shot the ball really well and handled the pressure that they gave us. We really played a clean game.”

That good shooting put the Golden Rams ahead 36-25 at the break and had LHU looking for answers in the locker room.

The Bald Eagles knew they needed to make a run early to get back in the game and they did just that. A quick 5-0 spurt in the first two minutes of the second half forced a timeout from DeLaney.

“We put Arre inside,” Wilson said. “We had him match up against a guard that was guarding him. We were able to get some good buckets inside.

“I think it took a lot out of Billy with all the contact inside, but it worked for us there in the beginning of the half.”

“It was big for us to answer the call,” DeLaney said. “It’s a game of runs. They came out smoking in the second half, especially with Arre, but we were able to answer back. This was a good win for us.”

That timeout turned the game around quickly as West Chester answered right back with its own 5-0 run to get the lead back to 11. The Bald Eagles would never be that close the rest of the way.

West Chester kept LHU at arm’s length the rest of the game and collected a 69-54 PSAC crossover victory.

Saturday, the Bald Eagles fell to the same fate, dropping their contest against visiting Millersville 72-51.

Still in search of its first victory this season, LHU will next take the floor on Saturday against Cheyney. That road game will be the back end of a men’s and women’s doubleheader and is slated to tip at 3 p.m.

 

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