Penguins Fall to Detroit, 62-54, On Senior Day

Youngstown -- Senior DeAndre Mays scored a team-high 13 points and classmate Kelvin Bright added 11 but the Youngstown State men's basketball team shot just 35.3 percent from the field and dropped a 62-54 decision to Detroit on Senior Day on Saturday afternoon at the Beeghly Center.

The Penguins finish the regular season with an overall record of 8-21 and 2-16 in the Horizon League while Detroit improves to 18-13 overall and 9-9 in the league.

Junior Vytas Sulskis added 10 points with a team-high six rebounds while Mays also dished out four assists. Senior Dallas Blocker also posted eight points.

The Penguins trailed just 41-37 with 15:49 left on highlight-reel dunk by Kelvin Bright, but the Titans scored 11 straight points over the next six-and-a-half minutes to take a 52-37 lead with 9:23 left. The Titans led by as many as 16 on a Simon free throw at the 6:42 mark.

Sulskis and Martin each hit final-minute 3-pointers to cut the deficit down to eight points. Sulskis triple brought the Guins within 10, 61-51, with 49 seconds left and Martin's was the final basket of the game with 30 seconds to go.

YSU made five fewer field goals than the Titans in the first half, but the Penguins went 4-for-8 from 3-point range to keep the deficit to five at halftime. The Titans outscored YSU 20-4 in the paint in the opening period behind nine points from Kennedy and six from Xavier Keeling.

Both teams started slow on the offensive end as the score was tied at 8-8 when YSU's Vytas Sulskis hit a 3-pointer with 12:51 remaining. A Sirlester Martin triple at the 9:47 mark gave the Penguins their first lead, but Detroit scored the next six points and went ahead 25-19 on a Chase Simon bucket with just under four minutes left. The Titans scored the final four points of the half after Sulskis' pair of charity tosses cut the margin to one with 1:15 left.

The 10th-seeded Penguins will take on the third-seeded Green Bay Phoenix, Tuesday, March 2, in the first round of the Speedway Horizon League Championship. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. EDT.