Men's Basketball: Bethany stumped at home against PSU-Behrend

Drew VonScio, Student Assistant for Athletic Communications 

BETHANY, W.Va. – Bethany men's basketball team held their home opener inside Hummel Field House Saturday afternoon against Penn State-Behrend. The Lions pounced on the Bison in the early stages of the first half and never looked back to cruise to a 75-49 victory. 

Owen Flisnik put Behrend on the board first with a layup followed by a Stefan Milinkovic layup one minute and ten seconds later. The Lions went on a 13-3 run through the first four minutes of the opening half. Shots from outside the arc connected all game for Behrend which propelled them to be ahead by a whopping 24 points entering the break and saw the Bison having to go back to the drawing board in the locker room. 

In the second half, the Bison took much better care of the basketball as they only turned it over twice compared to an egregious 10 times through the first 20 minutes of play. A Quinn Hiles layup less than three minutes into the second half saw Bethany pull within 21 points. Offensively, the Bison managed to trade point-for-point with the Lions in the back half of this contest. Unfortunately for the Green and White, they never came any closer than that as the deficit they suffered in the first half was too big of a hill to climb.  

Leading the way for Bethany was sophomore guard Chance Wells who had 13 points and shot 6-for-14 from the field. Hiles was right behind him with 10 points, while Cole Dailey came up just short of a double-double in his second collegiate game. The freshman forward added 9 points and 11 boards for Bethany. 

The Bison have a very quick turnaround as they open conference play Tuesday night at home against the reigning PAC champions, the Washington and Jefferson Presidents. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:00 PM.