Lions survive in first home playoff game
2.27.08
(article appeared in 2.27.08 edition of Altoona Mirror)

BY:  Bob Larson

Most basketball coaches would feel pretty good about having a 13-point halftime lead, but don’t count Penn State Altoona coach Alan Seretti among them.

Penn State Altoona led Pitt-Greensburg, 36-23, at the half in its Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference first-round playoff game, but Seretti wasn’t about to celebrate prematurely because he had a feeling it would come down to the wire.

Seretti was right.

In the teams’ previous two meetings, Penn State Altoona lost to Pitt-Greensburg at home at the buzzer and then beat the Bobcats in overtime at their place less than a week ago.

This time out, Pitt-Greensburg rallied in the second half to take the lead, but Penn State Altoona forced overtime and came back to win its first-ever home playoff game, 79-73, in front of a loud crowd Tuesday night at the Adler Gymasium.

Penn State Altoona, the No. 4 seed, improved to 14-12 and advanced to the AMCC semifinals on Friday where it will play at top seed Penn State Behrend.

“I knew it would be close,” Seretti said. “It’s the playoffs and guys are not going to go away. We thought the key to the second half was to get a couple buckets early and get some more separation and maybe force them to hurry and take some bad shots.”

Penn State Altoona did just that, extending its lead to 17, 40-23, but the Bobcats wouldn’t go away.

Led by junior guard Darnell Hampton’s 17 second-half points, Pitt-Greensburg pulled to within 55-53 before Colin Geiger scored seven straight points to extend the Lions’ lead to nine, 62-53.

Hampton then scored six straight points, including a 3-pointer to tie it at 65-65.

“Hampton hit some huge shots,” Seretti said. “He’s one of the better offensive players in our league, and their other players started to feed off of him. Then we started getting tentative.”

A basket by freshman forward Larry Bigante gave the Bobcats their first lead of the second half, 67-65, but Lion sophomore point guard Zach Spitz got fouled on a drive to the basket with 10 seconds remaining.

Spitz had missed his previous three free-throw attempts but sank both free throws to tie it at 67-67.

“Zach’s about a 72 percent foul shooter,” Seretti said. “We rely on him to make the big ones for us. We trust him, and that’s why we want him to have the ball at the end to make plays.”

Pitt-Greensburg missed a pair of shots that would have won it in regulation, and Penn State Altoona dodged a bullet.

“When they missed at the end of regulation, that was a big weight off of our shoulders,” Seretti said. We lost three games this season in the closing seconds, so when [Daniel] Waajid missed that last shot we believed we were going to win this game.”

Penn State Altoona’s Quintin Dziabo, who went over the 1,000-point career mark in the first half, hit one-of-two free throws and Spitz scored on a drive to put the Lions on top, 70-67.

Hampton buried a 3-pointer to give the lead back to the Bobcats, 71-70, but Curtis Geiger drilled a big 3-pointer to give Penn State Altoona the lead for good, 73-71.

“I was very pleased with the way we played in the second half,” Pitt-Greensburg coach Marcus Kahn said. “We even had two chances to win it at the end of regulation, but then we sort of ran out of gas. Penn State Altoona has a good team.”

Seretti, in his third year at the helm, has taken the Penn State Altoona program to a new level.

“We were just trying to get better as a team,” Seretti said. “We were trying to do things the right way, and in doing so we started to see results in the win column. Now we’re in the final four, and that is a great testament to these kids and how hard they have worked. My first year we lost 11 games in a row. Colin Geiger, [Mike] Dancer and Dziabo were the only holdovers from before I got here. They stuck with it and worked hard, and we brought in some kids that came from winning high school programs. So we have some winners in our program that have confidence in themselves, and it is starting to show.”

CONTACT:        Penn State Altoona Sports Information
                           Steve Crider  --  SID
                           814-949-5173
                           sac310@psu.edu