Box Score Abington, Pa. – Penn State Abington took home a crucial NEAC victory in their first game back on home court in the year 2014 earlier Saturday afternoon. The Nittany Lions used a strong second-half performance to cruise to a 72-60 win over Wells College. Junior forward Mike Marvin earned a double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds, while fellow junior Avery Barnes led all scorers with 23 points in the game. The Express were led by the frontcourt combination of Jordan Jean and Al Paul, who tallied 16 and 15 points, respectively.

The Nittany Lions (5-4, 2-1 NEAC) and the Express (3-7, 3-1 NEAC) opened the first half by trading blows early on. For the first fifteen minutes of the game, neither side lead by more than four points, and the lead changed hands six different times as the teams made mini-runs back and forth. Finally, with 3:10 left in the opening half, freshman Nisiar Smith made a great defensive play to steal the ball away from a Wells player. Smith then went coast-to-coast and laid the ball in off the glass to give the Blue and White a 26-21 lead. After an answering layup from the Express, sophomore Devin Jones drained a three-pointer to push the Penn State Abington lead to six points, the highest of the half. Ultimately, Wells would answer back before the half ended, but when the teams headed to their lockers, the Nittany Lions still held onto a four-point lead at 30-26.

Wells came out of the halftime break and managed to cut that lead down to just one point when Paul sank a three-ball of his own. Then, a few minutes later, another three from the Express actually gave them a 37-34 lead, their first since the opening half. The Nittany Lions answered back with an 8-1 run, made up of layups by Smith, Barnes, and Marvin, to put the hosts back in the lead 42-38. Then, midway through the half, the teams put together a riveting few minutes where one side would take the lead, only to see their opponents answer immediately at the other end. After a pair of free throws at the 10:45 mark by Max Alton gave Penn State Abington a three-point lead, Erich Kaempffe came down on the other end of the floor and made a three-pointer to tie the game back up. On the next possession, Marvin worked his way into the paint for a layup, and then Jean answered with a layup of his own for the Express. Once again, Marvin came down the floor and banked in another layup to give Abington a two-point lead, only to see Wells come back down to the other end and tie it back up for a third straight time with a layup. Then, after a missed free throw from the Nittany Lions, Wells took their own two point advantage before the Nittany Lions scored two more baskets in the paint to retake the lead, and this time for good. Over the remaining six minutes, the Nittany Lions went on a 20-10 run to close out the game and take home an important North Eastern Athletic Conference win.

The Nittany Lions got double-digit scoring from all five of their starters this afternoon, and they scored exactly half of their 72 points inside the paint. Wells struggled from the field throughout the game, including going 0-11 from beyond the arc in the first half, but they did outwork the Nittany Lions on the offensive glass. The Express scored 19 second chance points on the afternoon, compared to just four for the Blue and White. However, what really matters is that the Nittany Lions got their second conference win of the year, propelling them up to a tie for third in the conference standings and just a game out of first place. The team will be right back on the floor tomorrow afternoon to try and continue their climb up the leaderboard in the NEAC. They will take on Keuka College, another New York squad, on the campus of Penn State Abington. Gametime is set for 12:00 pm.