BEAVER FALLS, PA (Feb. 1)- The Saint Vincent men's basketball team overcame offensive struggles to earn a tightly contested 59-54 victory over Geneva on Saturday afternoon.

The Bearcats (15-4, 11-3 PAC) were able to fight off a tough scoring day offensively to hang on late in their win over Geneva (9-10, 7-7 PAC) thanks to some tough defense and a second half tone shift inside.

Osyon Jones came alive in the second being the true x-factor in this win. He scored 15 points on 6-12 shooting from the field with seven rebounds. Jaden Gales made his mark off the bench scoring eight points while getting to the line on command with 10 free throw attempts and being a stopper on defense with three blocks and a steal.

Both teams started off extremely cold, with the scoring sitting at 4-4 after the first seven minutes of the game. The teams combined to shoot just 3-23 over this stretch with six turnovers. Both offenses were just completely out of rhythm. 

The game carried on like this for several more minutes until finally Geneva's offense came to life. Going 3-3 from the field and 3-3 from the free throw line Geneva was able to spark a quick 10-0 run in a two minute span with the Bearcats offense remaining lifeless. Geneva held a 18-13 lead with three minutes to play in the quarter following this run.

The rest of the half went a bit back forth with more long scoring droughts and silly mistakes from both sides. Geneva was able to slightly outpace Saint Vincent with a flurry of buckets as the half ended to head into the break with a 24-18 lead.

Saint Vincent shot 17% from the field and 18% from deep with eight turnovers. They scored just 18 total points with only three points off turnovers and four points in the paint. Nothing was going right on that end. They could not create shots inside which limited their ability to drive and kick to open up the 3-point line. The defense showed up, holding Geneva to similarly horrible numbers, but at this level of offense the odds of the margin staying close are not good. Mike Iuzzolino kept the Bearcats afloat in the first half with 10 points on 2-7 shooting from the field and 2-5 shooting from deep.

The Bearcats offense finally got going to open up the second half. They scored 11 points on 5-9 shooting in the first four minutes to take a 29-28 lead with about 16 minutes to play. They were able to more successfully get out and run with Jones really finding his confidence scoring seven points in this run.

From here the teams went back and forth over the next eight minutes tying 14-14 to keep the Saint Vincent lead at one with a score of 43-42 with about 7:30 to play. Both offenses were still pretty sloppy but Geneva hit the boards hard to get themselves extra possessions and Saint Vincent turned up the intensity driving inside, drawing 10 free throws over this span.

The Bearcats offense finally found some true life over the next three minutes to go on a 10-4 run. They continued to be aggressive getting to the line while also converting on their looks from the field to finally put a good run together and take a 53-46 lead with about four minutes to play.

For the next four minutes Geneva tried their best to close the gap, and even got it to a one possession game multiple times, but the Bearcats always had an answer to push the lead back up. They knocked down their free throws in the late game and Geneva eventually just ran out of time to make the comeback with Saint Vincent winning 59-54.

Despite the offensive troubles, the Bearcats were able to just string enough stops together throughout the game to pull this one out. They shot just 33% from the field, but held Geneva to just 32% from the field. The main difference in this game was the aggression levels. With nothing working in the first half the Bearcats made a giant effort to get to the rim in the second half, and while that did not return much better results from the field it did return 24 second half free throw attempts. This aggressiveness inside just gave the Bearcats a bigger margin of error which won out in the end.

Saint Vincent will look to keep the winning going back at home against Westminster this Wednesday, February 5. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Robert S. Carey Center.