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MANSFIELD – Joe Bell topped five Mansfield players in double-figures as Mansfield kept alive its PSAC playoff hopes with an 82-70 win over Millersville in a PSAC East matchup Saturday afternoon at Decker Gymnasium.

“We needed this win,” said head coach Rich Miller. “You push these players as hard as we do in practice and you've got to come away with a win sometime to keep them believing. Our guys worked hard today and we made some second-half adjustments that really paid off.”

A big part of those halftime adjustments were taking steps to limit Millersville's offensive rebounding while at the same time increasing the Mountaineers own offense pressure. Millers players responded well to the strategy adjustments, limiting Millersville to just four offense rebounds in the second half after the Marauders had pulled down 12 first half offense boards while at the same time connecting on 18-of-28 shots from the floor over the last 20 minutes – the Mountaineers best half of shooting on the season.

The game started out slowly with Mansfield holding a 10-9 led after the first 10 minutes of play before junior Cory Henneghan caught fire from the outside connecting on four straight 3-pointers, giving Mansfield a 28-15 advantage four minutes later.

Mansfield led 30-19 with less than three minutes before intermission when Millersville went on an 11-0 run to tie the game at 30-30 with seconds left. But Josh Dupuy hit deep 3-pointer as time expired to give Mansfield a 33-30 advantage at intermission.

Mansfield used an 11-5 run over the first four minutes of the second with the Mountaineers extending their lead to 44-35 on a layup by Charles Becoats.
Millersville would close the gap to as few as four points four times after that but could pull no closer.

Mansfield led 64-59 with just under five minutes to play before the Mountaineers went on a 13-3 run to take was proved to be an insurmountable 77-62 advantage on a pair of Dominic Oliver free throws with 2:17 remaining.

The win, Mansfield's seventh straight over Millersville, snapped a season-long three-game losing streak for the Mountaineers and keeps alive their hopes for a PSAC playoff berth.

Bell scored 12 of his game-high 20 points in the second half and also down six rebounds with two assists and two steals. Henneghan scored 13 points while Josh Dupuy and Kevonte McClain each scored 12 points with Dupuy dishing out a game-best six assists and McClain pulled down a team-high seven rebounds.

Millersville (6-12, 4-10 PSAC) was led by Anthony Coleman and Mike Seibert each with 14 points while Elijah Obade posted a double-double with 11 points and 13 rebounds.

Mansfield improves to improves to 7-11 overall and 4-10 in PSAC play but more importantly just two games behind West Chester for the fourth and final playoff spot in the PSAC East.

The Mountaineers end the first half of the PSAC East season at West Chester Wednesday.