SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. – The Shippensburg men's basketball team outscored Mansfield by 16 points over the final six minutes to pull away for an 81-63 win over the Mounties in a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Eastern Division contest at Heiges Field House.
SU (21-2, 17-2 PSAC) was led by junior
Dustin Sleva's career-high 33 points and 12 rebounds. Sleva played a team-high 39 minutes, shooting 9-of-16 from the field and making 13-of-14 free throw attempts. Twenty-one of Sleva's 33 points came after halftime.
Senior
Abe Massaley scored 12 points while dishing out six assists and grabbing five rebounds. Junior
Justin McCarthur notched his eighth 20-point game of the season, scoring 21 points on 6-of-15 shooting, including five makes from beyond the arc. He's now made 56 three-pointers in the last 14 games.
McCarthur entered the game just one three-pointer shy of the single-season school record, and broke it with his five three-pointers. He moves past Matt Markle and Alex Jones, who each made 71 for the previous single-season benchmark.
The Raiders led the entire second half, but the Mounties remained in striking distance and eventually cut the SU advantage to two points when Mansfield's Andreas Katopodis knocked down a transition three-pointer with 6:14 left. The Raiders called timeout, and responded with a layup by freshman
John Castello. The bucket by Castello jumpstarted a 19-3 SU run to finish the game.
Sleva scored nine points in the run, but the exclamation point came with 44 seconds remaining when McCarthur drained a three-pointer at the shot clock – much to the approval of the Heiges Field House crowd. The Raiders were fantastic from the line down the stretch, making 19-of-21 attempts in the second half. SU's 90.9 percent (20-for-22) free throw shooting for the game was a season best.
Castello added eight points and 14 rebounds to the SU effort, which helped mark the second straight game in which Castello and Sleva combined to outrebound the opponent. Castello and Sleva totaled 26 boards while Mansfield had 25 rebounds in the game.
Sleva's scoring effort marked the first 30-point game by an SU player since Massaley scored 31 points against West Chester on Dec. 4, 2015. The 33 points were tied for the most in a game since the 2013-2014 season, when Joe Lococo scored 33 points against Shepherd on Nov. 16, 2013.
The 21 wins for SU are the second-most ever in a single season in school history, with Saturday's victory breaking a three-way tie at 20 between this season's team and the 2015-16 and 1990-91 Raider outfits. The Raiders will try to pick up win No. 22 Wednesday when they travel to West Chester with tip-off set for 7:30 p.m. from Hollinger Field House.
