YSU Sports

Peters, Valpo handle YSU

YOUNGSTOWN -- Alec Peters is agile for his size.

The 6-foot-9, 235-pound senior forward is quite a presence in the post.

Valparaiso already knows that. So does the most of the country.

He was recently among the top 25 midseason candidates for the 2017 John R. Wooden Award, which goes to the nation's most outstanding player.

Thursday, the Horizon League's leading scorer showed the Youngstown State men's basketball team how good he is in a 78-62 Valparaiso victory.

Peters is taller than all but YSU center Jorden Kaufman, who stands 7-0. The Crusaders (13-4, 3-1 Horizon League) have two other sizable players -- Jamue Sorolla (6-11) and Derrik Smits (7-2). Smits is the son of former NBA player Rik Smits.

In the end, Valparaiso dominated the boards 46 to 24 and 14 to 5 on the offensive rebounds.

"Guarding smaller players, there's one of two things that can happen," said Peters, who led the Crusaders with 17 points and 15 rebounds. "Either I'm going to catch in the post and he's going to be behind me. Or, I'm going to score and make a play out of that. He's going to be in front of me and try to arm wrestle me, or whatever he can. With a smaller guy, I'm going to win that battle. I'm a stronger guy and that's going to happen. It's all about positioning. If you can get the position, all it takes for the ball to be in your area and you're going to go get it."

YSU coach Jerry Slocum appreciated the effort.

"They're bigger than us," Slocum said. "Our guys battled pretty hard on the glass."

Cameron Morse, who had a game-high 18 for YSU (8-10, 2-3), made a 3-pointer with 7:41 before halftime to tie the game at 24. From there, Valparaiso outscored the Penguins 17-4 to end the half.

Aside from Matt Donlan's 10 points, the other three YSU starters had a combined 14 points -- including one from Francisco Santiago.

Shane Hammik had 15 for Valparaiso, while Tevonn Walker and Sorolla each had 12.

This was YSU's lowest point total since a Dec. 20 loss at Ohio State, 77-40. That's an impressive feat against a YSU team that drives and makes plays for one another.

"We had to switch a lot of their action because they run all over the floor on offense," Peters said. "Of course Cameron is getting loose for a couple of things. We had to make sure he was in check too. It was a lot of communication. We had to talk a lot. We struggled at times in the first half and in the second half by communicating on switches and screens. Ultimately we did a good enough job to win."

It wasn't YSU's night.

The Penguins, who fell behind 73-50 on two Hammik free throws with 4:14 remaining, shot 1-of-10 from 3 and 37.9 percent in the second half. YSU also shot 10-of-19 from the foul line.

Valparaiso shot 14-of-18 from the foul line.

"I thought we did a pretty good job at the defensive end," said Slocum, whose team saw Valparaiso shoot 46.8 percent from the floor. "Our offense let us down again. We did a good job for the most part keeping them off the foul line. I thought our free-throw shooting wasn't very good."

YSU hosts UIC at 7:05 p.m., Saturday.