SALEM, West Virginia - Looking to defend their home court and fresh off a home victory, Salem Men's Basketball and Head Coach Vince Thibodeau were primed for one of the biggest games of the season on Wednesday night. It was the season finale against the local rival Glenville State Pioneers. Going into the game, the season series sat at 1-1 with Glenville winning at home, but Salem ending victorious on a neutral floor early in the season. Attendees in Salem got their money's worth, with the Tigers erasing a massive deficit to knot the game up late. Unfortunately, the Pioneers were able to slip away in the waning seconds of the game 77-74.
In the first half, Salem started slow offensively. Glenville State rushed out to an early lead, and the Tigers needed to respond quickly to stay in the game. They did just that with some big three pointers from Kapone Barley and Brandon Francois to get the offensive attack in gear. From there, the rest of the half settled into a back and forth slugfest. Ultimately, Salem stuck in the game, but had a big hole to dig out of going into the halftime break with a 41-27 deficit.
After the break, Salem shifted their focus to the interior game to slowly but surely chip away at the Pioneer lead. The 1-2 punch of drives from Jack Garrison IV and bruising interior play from Ashraf Tchadouwa proved reliable for the Tigers. As the Tigers controlled the interior, that then opened up some outside shooting for the Tigers as well. It was a three from Khemanni DAvis that knotted the game up at 65 with about 4 minutes to go. However, Salem never was able to claim true control of the game, and the Tiger's dramatic comeback bid fell short in the waning seconds. Therefore, Glenville State escaped the Tiger's Den with the 77-74 victory.
From the scorebook, Salem still had some strong individual performance to hang their hat on despite the heartbreaking loss. Ian Hardy and Kapone Barley led the Tigers with 18 points a piece. Khemanni Davis added another 14 points off the bench, and Ashraf Tchadouwa locked up his 9th double double of the season by chipping in 12 points and 10 rebounds.
Coming off two straight home appearances, Salem gets on the road for their next contest. They head down south to Athens, West Virginia on Saturday, February 10th at 4 PM to take on the Concord University Mountain Lions. Salem fell to Concord in the home leg of their season series back on November 29th by a score of 72-56.
