William Penn’s men’s basketball team came back from a 16 point second half deficit to beat Peru State 89-86 Tuesday night at Penn Gymnasium.  The fourth-ranked Statesmen trailed 74-58 with eleven minutes to play, but went on a 31-12 burst the rest of the way for the victory.  Statesmen Coach John Henry:

“This is a gritty game.  We pulled it off and I’m not really sure how other than we just got a little tougher in the final ten minutes.”

Senior Kevion Blaylock had seven of his 25 points in the final five minutes….including the basket that put the Statesmen ahead for good 84-83 with 2:52 to play.

“We knew that they couldn’t guard him off the dribble, so when they started backing off, he just started hitting jumpers.  Newman carried us up to that point and then we went to Blaylock.  And I thought Malyk Thomas was fantastic defensively….and Malik Edwards off the bench, he’s 18 years old, he had 7 points as well.”

Senior Karmari Newman led William Penn with 27 points as the Statesmen improve to 6-0 overall and 1-0 in the Heart of America Athletic Conference’s North Division.  The Statesmen men are off until Saturday afternoon (11/20) when they host Briar Cliff.

Meanwhile, the Statesmen women are still looking for their first victory of the season.  Columbia College defeated William Penn 69-45 on Tuesday.  Statesmen Coach Jenna Santi says Columbia has received votes in the NAIA national rankings—something they have in common with other Statesmen opponents so far this year.

“That is correct.  We’ve played a lot of top teams that are receiving votes and some of them have already gone up ten spots in the ranking poll. Good for them, they’re great teams.  But they’ve also made us better.”

Junior Ally Stewart had 14 points for the Statesmen women, who are now 0-7 on the year.  They’ll open their Heart of America Athletic Conference schedule Friday night (11/19) against Peru State at Penn Gymnasium.