Jan. 28, 2012
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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Cleveland State raced out to a 22 point halftime lead and cruised to a 67-47 win over Youngstown State on Saturday night in the Beeghly Center.
The win improves the Vikings to 18-4 overall and keeps CSU in first place in the Horizon League at 8-2. YSU slipped to 11-9 overall and 6-4 in league play.
It marked the fifth time this year that the Vikings held an opponent under 50 points.
Anton Grady led CSU with 14 points and 11 rebounds for his second career double-double. Trey Harmon added 10 points on 3-of-6 shooting from three-point, while Aaron Pogue had eight points and eight rebounds.
Youngstown native D'Aundray Brown finished with nine points and six steals, one shy of equaling his career-high. The six steals moved his career total to 201, allowing Brown to become the eighth player in school history to reach 200 career steals.
The Vikings shot 8-of-15 (.533) from three-point, including a 6-for-8 (.750) effort in the first half to gain a 41-19 lead after the first 20 minutes.
After a Kendrick Perry free throw gave YSU a 1-0 lead, CSU rattled off five straight on a three-pointer by Jeremy Montgomery and a Brown basket to take a 5-1 lead. The Penguins responded with an 8-2 run to regain a 9-7 lead less than five minutes into the game, but it was all CSU from there.
Back-to-back three-pointers by Harmon put CSU up 13-9 and started a 34-10 run by the Vikings to close the final 15 minutes of the half.
The Vikings climbed out to the large first half lead thanks to a prolific offense and even better defense.
CSU shot 17-of-29 (.586) from the field in the first half and held the Penguins to just 7-of-25 (.280), including 2-of-14 (.143) on three's.
A brief 8-3 run to open the second half helped YSU slice the lead to 17 points (44-27), but the Vikings had an answer, using a Pogue tip-in and back-to-back three-pointers from Montgomery and Brown to regain a 25 point (52-27) advantage with 15:29 left to play.
The lead was as least 17 points the rest of the way.
CSU is back in action when the Vikings travel to Chicago for two games next weekend. The trip opens with a 9:00 p.m. EST game at Loyola on Friday (Feb. 3) on ESPNU. CSU then plays at UIC on Sunday (Feb. 5) at 2:00 p.m. EST.
