VIENNA - The Ohio Valley University basketball programs suffered a home doubleheader setback here Tuesday evening inside the Snyder Activity Center.
OVU's women got behind early and couldn't recover, falling 68-58 to Urbana. The same scenario played out for the Fighting Scot men during their 70-48 setback to Slippery Rock.
Men
Article Photos
Photo by Jeff Baughan
Ohio Valley University's Janelle Silver leaps past Urbana University's Ciara Geiger Tuesday during their game at the Snyder Activity Center. Urbana scored a 68-58 win over Ohio Valley in the season opener.
Slippery Rock 70, OVU 48
Playing in its season opener after going up against Navy and Michigan in the preseason, visiting Slippery Rock held Ohio Valley University to just 24 points in each half and 29.9 percent shooting for the game.
Mustafa Helal, who finished with nine points, eight boards and a trio of blocks, gave the Fighting Scots (1-2) their only lead at 2-0 when he knocked down a 13-foot baseline jumper from an Evan Jamison feed. The Rock then scored 11 of the next 13 points as Devin Taylor netted seven of his 17 markers in the run.
Luiz Santos' three-point play gave the visitors their first double figure lead of the game at 18-8 with 10:59 left in the first half. OVU, which visits Ohio Dominican at 3 p.m. Saturday, sliced it to 24-17 at the 8:23 mark after a Chris Baker three-point play. Although a take to the hole by Baker 1:42 later actually made it 24-19, the hosts never got any closer as turnovers and tough shot selection were to blame.
Ashton Brown, who had 17 points and was the only OVU player to score double figures, hit a 16-foot pull-up jumper with 69 seconds left in the half to make it 32-24, but Slippery Rock led by 10 at the break thanks to a Tabari Perry deuce via a Sa'Quan Davis assist.
The early portion of the second half was all Slippery Rock as the visitors took advantage of several OVU turnovers to open up a 21-point cushion after a 15-4 run. Perry had eight of his game-high 19 points in the spurt and Aubin Reeves' three-point play at the 15:54 mark made it 49-28.
Even though the Fighting Scots held the Rock to zero field goals for a span of 5:15, the hosts never got closer than 52-39.
Jerry Macon Jr. had an early first half stuff for Ohio Valley, which lost the battle on the boards 57-39 and joined SRU with 18 turnovers.
Women
Urbana 68, OVU 58
Urbana made a seven-minute blitz to open the game stand up for its first win of the season.
The Blue Knights (1-1) were on pace to score more than 60 points in the first half after pulling ahead 22-8.
OVU then clamped down on defense for the rest of the night, but occasional lapses on offense proved to be the downfall for the Fighting Scots in their season-opener.
"We did a great job with our 1-2-2 zone defense and slowed them down," OVU women's coach David Wadlington said. "We were trying make a run and trying to catch back up, but we didn't execute on the offensive end like we needed to.
"We turned the ball over and had opportunities at the free-throw line. We got close, but just couldn't do it."
Tara Benedict scored 10 of her team-high 17 points as OVU crept to within 23-20 with seven minutes remaining before intermission. After the senior picked up her third foul with 4:16 showing and took a seat on the bench, Urbana made a surge thanks to a pair of buckets from Ciara Geiger and extended the gap to 36-26 heading into the locker room.
Geiger finished with 19 points, but was limited to just one field goal and a total of three points in the second half. Urbana's outside shooters picked up the slack and knocked down consecutive 3-pointers as the lead increased to 53-35 with just under 13 minutes left in the game.
OVU made one final push and sliced the deficit to single digits at 56-48 behind four points from Benedict. Kayla Parsley, who came off the bench to contribute 11 points and 10 rebounds, converted a three-point play at the 3:36 mark as the difference sat at seven points (58-51).
The Fighting Scots, however, did not have an answer for Kate Francisco, who accounted for six of her 19 points down the stretch.
OVU point guard Shelby Way also scored in double figures with 15 points to go with seven rebounds and four assists.
