Box Score
Dwayne Cohill and Tevin Olison combined for 43 points, and the Youngstown State men's basketball team trailed for just 17 seconds as it beat Oakland 78-71 on Wednesday evening at the Beeghly Center.
The Penguins earned their fifth straight win as they look to continue building momentum for the stretch run of the regular season. YSU is now 15-10 overall and 9-6 in Horizon League play, and Oakland dropped to 16-8 and 9-4.
Cohill scored a game-high 24 points, which was just one shy of his career high, and Olison scored 19 for YSU as it began a five-game homestand. They both made three 3-pointers, and the Penguins finished with nine as a team. Myles Hunter added 12 points off the bench.
Jamal Cain scored 20 points and Jalen Moore had 19 for Oakland, but they combined to go 1-for-11 from 3-point range. The Golden Grizzlies were 5-for-23 from 3-point range, which offset a 20-for-25 effort from the free-throw line.
Michael Akuchie scored the first points of the game on a 3-pointer at the 19:08 mark, and the Penguins stayed ahead until the Golden Grizzlies tied the score at 7-7 on a Micah Parrish 3-pointer with 16:28 on the clock.
Cohill scored the next five points on his first 3-pointer of the night and a floater to get YSU's lead to 12-7, but Oakland answered with a 7-2 spurt to knot the game at 14. Another Cohill 3-pointer gave YSU a 20-16 lead at the 10:44 mark, and that was the largest lead until the six-point halftime margin.
Oakland caught the Penguins at 26 and 28 for the fourth and fifth ties of the first half, and the Golden Grizzlies' only lead came at 30-28 on a Moore fast-break layup with 4:00 on the clock. Will Dunn scored on YSU's next possession, and the Penguins closed the half on a 9-1 run to take its 37-31 lead at the break.
Cohill and Olison both had 10 of their points in the first half, and both made a pair of 3-pointers. Oakland had four players score at least seven points in the first 20 minutes.
After Parrish made a free throw 20 seconds into the second half to make the score 37-32, Cohill scored the next five points to push the lead to its largest of the night at 42-32. He hit a 3-pointer at the 19:26 mark, and he followed with two free throws 21 seconds later to up the margin to 10.
Oakland scored nine of the next 11 points to cut the margin to three, and a Moore 3-pointer at the 12:35 mark got the Golden Grizzlies within one at 50-49. That's as close as they get in the second half as YSU consistently answered Oakland buckets with their own makes.
Back-to-back 3s in a 40-second span by Owen Long upped YSU's lead to 61-53 at the 9:28 mark, but Oakland strung together a pair of free throws and a 3-point bucket to pull to within a single possession with 8:04 to play in the half. The Penguins buckled down on defense and held the Golden Grizzlies scoreless for almost two-and-a-half minutes, and YSU was able to regain a seven-point lead at 65-58.
The Penguins led by at least two possessions for just over seven minutes prior to Oakland cutting the YSU advantage to a single possession following a Myles Hunter foul that sent Townsend to the charity stripe for a pair of free throws with just 1:07 left in regulation with the scoreboard showing 74-71.
On the ensuing Penguins possession, Cohill would convert a pull-up jumper to extend the lead back to five. Cohill's lone steal of the game came at a crucial time, forcing a Golden Grizzly turnover that would lead to a pair of Rathan-Mayes free throws with just 19 ticks remaining to push the Penguin lead back to seven and the ultimate final score, 78-71.
As a team, YSU shot 44.1 percent (30-of-68) from the field and converted 9-of-11 from the foul line. The Golden Grizzlies were 23-of-55 (41.8 percent) from the field and were forced to shoot just 21.7 percent from long range (5-of-23). Oakland had three players who reached double figures and were led by Cain with 20.
The Penguins are back in action for game two of the three-game homestand of Friday, Feb. 11, taking on Detroit Mercy at the Beeghly Center. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.
