WVSU Earns Hard Fought Win over Falcons - West Virginia State University Athletics

West Virginia State University Athletics

    Sometimes in basketball one team pulls away and wins easily.
    Sometimes the flow of the game, the momentum, shifts back and forth until one team finally wins.
    And then, like Monday night in Institute, there are games where the score stays close the entire time and the team that wins is the one that stays a little more focused, a little more intense throughout.
    Monday it was the West Virginia State players who did not let up from the opening tip until the final buzzer in defeating last season's national runner-up Fairmont State 106-100 in Institute.
   "I'm really proud of our guys and their effort tonight," WVSU Head Coach Bryan Poore said. "Fairmont is one of the top teams in t he league and we needed a win like this."
    Just how close was the contest?
    The largest Falcon lead was four points in the first half.
    The Yellow Jackets pulled ahead by eight at 79-71 with 1:27 to play. They held that margin for exactly 27 seconds.
    Throughout the game the score bounced between that early four point Fairmont advantage to a four or five point WVSU lead.
    In other words nearly the entire game was spent with one team being within two possessions of the other or with the score tied.
    Both squads refused to blink.
    The Jackets sank 44.4 percent of their shots in the first half and then 57.5 after the break.
    Fairmont State could not quite keep up that pace though as the Falcons hit 48.6 from the floor in the opening half but saw that drop off to 42.9 in the second.
    The WVSU defense had something to do with that as the Jackets applied enough pressure to force 18 turnovers on the game, 11 from steals.
    When the Falcons made one last run to cut the score to 102-100 with 49 seconds to go WVSU sophomore Ernest Jenkins responded with a short jumper with 21 seconds remaining after the Yellow Jackets had run 28 seconds off the shot clock.
     Jenkins followed with two free throws after a Fairmont State miss to seal the deal.
    The Yellow Jackets displayed incredible balance with five players in double-figure scoring.
     Pat Johnson-Agwu led WVSU with 26 points along with six rebounds.
    Jeremiah Moore added 21 on 9-11 shooting and eight rebounds while blocking four shots. Jenkins finished with 18 points and five assists.
     Langston Cooke had 15 points and Robert Fomby 11 before fouling out after only 15 minutes of action.

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