Patience!

The Golden Eagles basketball team exercised plenty of it in surviving a nearly six and one-half minute first half drought, before a huge 44-29 second half outburst propelled them to an 81-64 win at Penn State Beaver on Thursday night.

The victory is Kent State Tusc's sixth in their last eight games and their third win in a row. They are undefeated in the New Year with all three wins coming on the road.

The Eagles started slowly and fell behind early. They forged a tie at 11-11 on a sweet Mike Huberty drive to the hoop and dish to Jacob Hicks for a lay in at the rim with 15:26 left in the first half.

After a quick PSU Beaver timeout, the Navy and Gold employed a full court press that spotted them to a 16-11 lead at the 14:27 mark. Then they went cold and the Lions struck out on 17-0 run to lead 28-16. Huberty broke the spell breaking down the PSU zone defense with a drive to the hoop and seconds later Malik Campbell stole the PSU inbounds pass and made another layup to cut the deficit to eight at 28-20. A triple by Braden Rostad kept the momentum going and the Eagles were within four (28-24).

The first half ended with a flurry as KSU tied the game 35-35 and went ahead at halftime (37-35) on a slice to the basket by Huberty off an inbounds pass by Keenan Philpott.

The teams traded baskets for the first seven minutes of the final half, but with the score tied at 46-46, KSU went on an 8-0 run and led 54-48 with 9:32 left to play in the game. The spurt was fueled by a Rostad three, a Huberty put back, three free throws by Gunnar Tharp and the lead never got closer than six points over the final 9:08 of the game.

For the remainder of the game the lead teetered between 12 and 13 points, but the Eagles outscored the Lions 18-9 in the last five minutes to put things out of reach.

Campbell led KSU with 23 points on 9/13 field goal shooting and sinking 5/8 free throws. He scored 12 points in the opening half. Rostad scored 22 points and continued his torrid shooting pace making 9/12 floor shots and 4/6 three-point shots. He score 10 first half points.

As a team the Eagles made 33/63 shots for 52%. They held a 33-27 rebounding edge over the Lions.

With the win KSU Tusc is now 8-9 on the season. They host Penn State New Kensington on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. in Founders Hall Gym.

Braden Rostad scored 22 points making 4/6 three-point attempts.  (Photo by Jason Keller)