RELEASE DATE: 1/31/04

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: BRANDON DeSHIELDS SCORES MANSFIELD’S FINAL EIGHT POINTS AS MOUNTIES HOLD ON FOR A 72-67 VICTORY – LONGPRE’ MOVES INTO SECOND PLACE ON ALL-TIME SCORING LIST – CONNOR AND PEARSON RECORD DOUBLE-DOUBLES

MANSFIELD – Brandon DeShields scored Mansfield’s last eight points as the Mountaineers held on to beat West Chester 72-67 in a key PSAC East contest Saturday afternoon in Decker Gymnasium.

“No matter how close the score was, that was a solid win for us,” said Mountaineer head coach Vince Alexander. “We didn’t play well for much of the second half, but Brandon DeShields played very well in the final three minutes when we needed it the most.”

The Mountaineers looked untouchable in the first half, jumping out to a 37-22 lead at intermission on the strength of Ian Connor who had a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds in the first twenty minutes of the game.

Mansfield would never trail in the game and lead by as much as 44-24 two minutes into the second half on a lay-up by  Omari Pearson before West Chester started slowly chipping away at the lead.

West Chester completed a 31-11 run to tie the game at 55-55 with 6:26 to play. Mansfield retook the lead by as many as four points, but West Chester came right back to tie the game at 64-64 with 2:05 to go.

“We got out of our game plan for a while in the second half and West Chester took advantage of that to get back into the game. West Chester is a solid team that plays hard and they played real hard in the second half.”

DeShields then took over for the Mountaineers hitting a jumper to regain the lead before connecting on four straight free throws, and pulled down a key rebound with three second to play before being fouled and hitting two free throws to ice the win. West Chester last game tying 3-point attempt was blocked by Jason Roscoe.

DeShields finished with a game high 23 points, connecting on 10-12 free throws. Senior Brett Longpre’ scored 14 points to move into second place on the Mountaineer all-time scoring list. Longpre’ now has 1,631 points surpassing Chris Vennings (1983-86) 1,624.

For many of the 1,207 in attendance, the real story was the return of senior Omari Pearson to the lineup. The PSAC’s top scorer and rebounder, Pearson had missed the last two games because of an injury. He responded well recording his twelfth  double-double of the season with 10 points and a game high 12 rebounds. Ian Connor posted his fifteenth double-double of the season with 14 points and 10 rebounds.

Kofi Danquah led West Chester (11-8, 2-3) with 19 points.

Mansfield improves to 17-3 overall and remains in first place in the PSAC East with a 4-1.