Feb. 21, 2012
Contact: Greg Murphy
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GREEN BAY, Wis. -Anton Grady scored a career-high 23 points, but Green Bay made key three-pointers down the stretch and held off Cleveland State, 71-67, on Tuesday night in the Resch Center.
Grady, whose previous career-high was 18, hit 10-of-15 from the field, adding eight rebounds, three assists and two steals.
Tim Kamczyc scored 14 points and Trey Harmon added 13.
CSU fell to 20-9 overall and 10-6 in the Horizon League, while Green Bay improve to 13-14 overall and 8-9 in league play.
"We battled hard tonight, but didn't execute down the stretch and that is on us," head coach Gary Waters said. "We need to regroup heading into our final two regular season games this weekend at home and get back to playing Cleveland State basketball."
CSU was without senior all-everything D'Aundray Brown who is still nursing a strained groin and did not play for the fifth time in the last six games. That forced head coach Gary Waters to once again tinker his starting lineup, running out his sixth different lineup this season as freshman Charlie Lee earned his second career start.
It is in stark contrast to last season when the Vikings were one of three Division I teams to use the same starting lineup in every game.
Lee didn't disappoint early, scoring the first bucket of the game and Jeremy Montgomery followed with a driving layup to put CSU up, 4-0, with 18:34 on the clock. But a 13-3 Phoenix run over the next three minutes allowed Green Bay to take a 13-7 lead.
Grady stopped the run with a basket on the other end to bring CSU within four (13-9), but seven straight points by Green Bay extended its lead to 20-9, the largest of the half, with 11:45 to play.
That's when Grady took over, scoring nine points in an 18-4 Viking run that gave CSU a 27-24 lead with 3:49 to play in the half. The teams continued to trade baskets down the stretch and headed to the locker room tied at 36.
Grady and Harmon combined to score 28 of CSU's 36 first half points with Grady pouring in 15 on 7-of-10 shooting and Harmon scoring 13, including a 3-for-3 effort from three-point.
The second half featured four ties and 13 lead changes, the last coming when Kiefer Sykes made a steal and converted a layup to give the Phoenix a 63-62 lead with 3:38 left. After CSU did not score, Kam Cerroni hit a three-pointer with 2:58 to play to push the lead to four points.
Kamczyc answered with a layup for the Vikings, but Terry Johnson came right back with a three-pointer at the top of the key, giving Green Bay a 69-64 lead with 1:50 left.
Kamczyc answered on the other end and after a stop on the defensive end, CSU got the ball back. Jeremy Montgomery missed a three-pointer, but Aaron Pogue was fouled on the rebound, sending him to the line for a one-and-one. However, he missed the front end, but the Vikings got the ball back when Green Bay knocked it out of bounds.
CSU had one more chance, but a Harmon three-pointer was off the mark and Cerroni made two free throws with 8.8 seconds left to provide the final margin.
The Vikings are back in action on Thursday (Feb. 23) when CSU hosts Detroit at 7:00 p.m. in the Wolstein Center.
