ERIE, Pa. – Third seed La Roche University soared past second-seeded Penn State Altoona men's basketball by a score of 95-63 in Friday night's Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference Tournament semifinal game in Penn State Behrend's Junker Center.

La Roche (16-11) advances to face fourth seed Medaille College for the AMCC title in the conference's championship game tomorrow, Saturday, February 26 at 3:00 p.m. in Erie. Penn State Altoona (18-7) is eliminated from the tournament.

La Roche was powered by an exceptional shooting performance, as the Redhawks went 17-for-33 (51.5 percent) from three-point range and shot 51.4 percent from the floor overall. Conversely, Penn State Altoona was limited to a 19.2 percent performance from three, and the Lions shot 40.0 percent overall.

"Disappointing way to end our AMCC run. I knew La Roche would be ready, but I just thought that we would be, too," said Penn State Altoona head coach David McGreal. "We just got outplayed and outcoached. They made adjustments from the first two meetings, and their team played it to perfection, while we didn't do anything right that we worked on."

Saivon Word (Upper Marlboro, MD/Frederick Douglass) scored a team-high 13 points for Penn State Altoona while grabbing four rebounds. PJ Charles (Altoona, PA/Altoona) added 10 points to go along with team-highs in rebounds and steals, finishing with eight boards and four steals. Andruw Harman (Chesapeake, VA/Great Bridge) also scored 10 points.

Devon Darrell scored a game-high 24 points for La Roche, with 20 of his points coming in the first half. Joe Pipilo finished with 22 points, and Jordan Grayson provided 16 points off the bench.

"We just got a little too big for our britches, in my mind, and La Roche made us pay," said McGreal.

The first half was tightly-contested, but La Roche pulled away in the latter stages of the period to take a 38-33 lead into the locker room.

Trailing 6-2 three minutes into the game, Charles' layup, Alex McClellan's (York, PA/West York) jumper, and Harman's three-pointer put Penn State Altoona up 9-8 at 16:11. Another Charles layup and Harman trey, along with a Mason Bush (Pittsburgh, PA/Seneca Valley) jump shot, extended the Lions' lead to 16-8 by the 14:07 mark. Jarrett Gardner's (Live Oak, FL/Suwannee) basket just under a minute later kept his team's lead at eight, 18-10.

La Roche responded with a 9-0 run, capped by a Pipilo three-pointer at 10:10 that put the Redhawks on top, 19-18. McClellan's three-pointer at 6:50 kept the score differential at one, 24-23, and Word's bucket 44 seconds later put the Lions up 25-24.

But the Redhawks embarked on another run to establish a strong lead, this time outscoring Penn State Altoona 10-0 over the next two minutes to go up 34-25. Word's three-point play with 45 seconds left in the period cut La Roche's lead to three, 36-33, but Darrell closed out the scoring for the half with a jumper at the 29-second mark to set the Redhawks' advantage to 38-33 by the intermission.

La Roche broke the game open during a second half that saw the Redhawks outscore Penn State Altoona 57-30 and limit the Lions to a 29.6 percent shooting performance from the field.

A pair of Joe Starzynski free throws at 17:29 gave La Roche its first double-digit lead of the evening, 45-35. Grayson's three-pointer five minutes later put the Redhawks ahead by 20 points, 60-40, and La Roche went on to lead by as many as 32 points to clinch a trip to the AMCC championship game.

Despite being eliminated from the conference tournament, Penn State Altoona men's basketball still managed to record the best season in program history. This season, the Lions set new program records for the most overall wins in a season (18), most AMCC wins in a season (13), best regular season finish in the AMCC standings (earned second seed in the conference tournament), and first AMCC co-regular season champion title.

Penn State Altoona's 2021-22 campaign may not be finished yet, either. The Lions are in play for a possible berth into the Eastern College Athletic Conference's Division III Championship Tournament, which opens next week. That tournament's field will be announced following the NCAA Division III Tournament selection early next week.

"Obviously, we're still proud of what we have done in the AMCC this year," said McGreal. "Hopefully, we get this ECAC bid to get a chance to get back on the floor and have a shot at redemption."