SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. – The Shippensburg University men's basketball team used a quick start and stingy defense Saturday to knock off Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Eastern Division leader Kutztown, 78-70, inside Heiges Field House.
                        
Shippensburg (7-5, 4-4 PSAC) played one of its best defensive games of the year, holding Kutztown, the PSAC's top scoring team, to 20 points below its season average on 30.9 percent shooting.
 
The Raiders began the game on a 9-0 run and took a 48-39 lead into the half before opening the second half on a 6-0 spurt fueled by back-to-back three-pointers by senior Jay Hardy.
 
Sophomore Justin McCarthur had a fine afternoon, scoring a season-high 21 points to go along with six rebounds and five assists. McCarthur scored 17 of his 21 points in the first half as Shippensburg leading scorers sophomore Dustin Sleva and junior Abe Massaley dealt with foul trouble.
 
Despite picking up his third foul in the first half, Sleva finished with his seventh consecutive double-double, totaling 10 points and 15 rebounds.
 
Massaley was only able to play 15 minutes before fouling out, but finished with six points, five assists and three rebounds.
 
Hardy scored 11 of his 13 points in the second half as he made 3-of-6 from three-point range.
 
The Raiders received valuable contributions from its bench all afternoon long as SU's reserves outscored the Kutztown bench 42-28.
 
Along with McCarthur's standout performance, redshirt-freshman Manny Span scored nine points and grabbed six rebounds.
 
Sophomore Clay Conner scored six points and handled the Kutztown pressure extremely well in 25 minutes of action as the SU point guard.
 
Sophomore Trent Bauer scored six points and blocked a pair of shots in just 13 minutes.
 
Kutztown (8-2, 6-2) entered the game as the second-best field goal percentage team in the PSAC (51.4 percent) and the second-best three-point shooting team in the conference (41.6 percent).
 
However, the SU defense limited Kutztown to 25 makes on 81 field goal attempts, including just 4-of-21 (19 percent) shooting from beyond the arc.
 
The Raiders, which have won three straight PSAC games, return to action on January 3 against Clarion with tip-off set for 3 p.m.