(Erie, PA) – The Medaille men's basketball team avenged an earlier loss and got themselves back into the AMCC title hunt with a huge (60-53) road victory at rival Penn State-Behrend this evening.  The win is the Mavs third straight and it ended the Lions chances of an unbeaten conference run.

The Mavs fell into a deep hole early as Behrend jumped out to a (16-4) lead with (11:37) remaining in the opening half.  Medaille would claw back for the remainder of the opening stanza as they trailed (26-24) at the intermission.  The teams would trade buckets in the early portion of the second half before the Mavs would grab the lead and control of the game with just over seven minutes remaining.

The catalyst for Medaille would come from an unexpected player as sophomore Tyler Stevens (Depew, NY/Depew) came off the bench and posted a team and career high (16) points, connecting on 5 of 8 shots from the floor, including drilling four three pointers on his six attempts from beyond the arc.

Senior Ron Malicki (Machias, NY/Pioneer) inched closer to the (1,000) point plateau with his (11) point effort.  Malicki now has (978) points in his stellar Medaille career, just (22) shy of becoming the eighth player in program history to reach that milestone.

The Maverick bench continued to be a contributing factor to victory as they outscored their counterparts (30-16).  The Mavs also won the battle of the paint (28-20) and the battle of the boards (34-30).  Both teams did a tremendous job of taking care of the basketball as they combined for just (15) turnovers (Medaille 7 – Behrend 8), which made for an exciting and clean game.

The win moves Medaille to (12-5) overall and they remain in the upper portion of the league standings with an (8-2) AMCC mark.  The Mavs will host Pitt-Greensburg on Saturday (1/22) at 5:00pm.