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Vikings Top Youngstown State, 77-54, in League Opener

Vikings Top Youngstown State, 77-54, in League Opener
Posted: Dec 08, 2007

Dec. 8, 2007

Final Stats |  Quotes |  Notes

Contact: Brian McCann

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cedric Jackson scored 21 points, dished out a career-high 10 assists and added four rebounds and three steals as Cleveland State shot .646 (31-48) from the field to claim a 77-54 victory over Youngstown State in the Horizon League opener for both teams on Saturday afternoon in the Wolstein Center.

The win improves the Vikings to 7-3 (1-0 HL) this season, while the Penguins slipped to 3-5 (0-1 HL).

CSU's .646 shooting percentage is the 10th best in school-history and the best for a Viking team since they shot .650 against Green Bay during the 1992-93 season. In addition, CSU dished out 27 assists on 31 baskets, the second highest assist percentage in school history, trailing a .889 percentage (24 assists on 27 baskets) at UIC during the 1991-92 season.

CSU also shot .400 (6-15) from three-point, including a 5-for-10 (.500) effort in the first half.

George Tandy was the only other Viking to reach double figures with 14 points and also added six rebounds and five blocked shots. J'Nathan Bullock chipped in nine points and five boards, while D'Aundray Brown finished with a career-high tying eight points and three assists. Nine of the 10 Vikings who received action scored at least two points.

"We are starting to play together as a team," head coach Gary Waters said. "We spent a lot of time over the last three days working against a zone and making an extra pass and I thought we really moved the ball well today, as evidenced by our 27 assists.

"I also thought our guys executed our defensive game plan to perfection and we were highly disciplined on what we needed to do on the defensive end. This game was about defense and our young men worked hard to execute on that end of the floor."

The Vikings held YSU to .358 (19-53) shooting from the field and also blocked a season-high 11 blocks to break the old season-high of six.

The Vikings opened up a quick nine point lead (12-3) just over four minutes into the contest as George Tandy scored CSU's first four points of the game and Cedric Jackson and J'Nathan Bullock added back-to-back three-pointers.

YSU hung around for the next two minutes as a tip-in by Gemayl Johnson sliced the Penguin deficit to 14-7 with 12:53 to play. However, that would be as close as YSU would get as a Tandy layup with 10:23 to play pushed CSU's lead to 19-9 and the Vikings would lead by double figures the rest of the way thanks to their hot shooting.

The Vikings led 44-24 at halftime.

CSU connected on 17-of-28 from the field in the first half, including 50 percent (5-10) from three-point. In addition, the Vikings handed out 15 first half assists, including six from Jackson who also had 15 points in the first half.

A Jackson layup to open the second half gave the Vikings a 22 point advantage (46-24), but the Penguins used an 8-1 spurt to slice their deficit back to 15 points (47-32) with 15:35 to play.

However, that would be as close as the Penguins would get as Joe Davis knocked down a three-pointer, Tandy hit a pair of free throws followed by two baskets from Brown to push the Viking lead back to 20 points (56-36) with 12:19 to play.

For as well as CSU shot the ball in the first half, the Vikings were even better in the final 20 minutes, making 14-of-20 (.700) from the floor.

John Barber led the Penguins with 18 points and six rebounds, while Jack Liles scored 12 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the field.

The Vikings will now take a break for finals week before returning to action on Dec. 18 when CSU plays Ohio State at 7:00 p.m. at Quicken Loans Arena.