ERIE, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University men's basketball team saw its season come to an end Wednesday night with an 88-73 loss on the road at Mercyhurst University in the opening round of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Tournament.
 
The Rock finish the season with a 14-15 overall record, marking the first sub .500 season in the nine-year career of head coach Kevin Reynolds. Mercyhurst improves to 14-13 with the win and will advance to the quarterfinals to play top seeded Indiana (Pa.) Wednesday night.
 
Slippery Rock trailed by just two points at halftime, 34-32, but Mercyhurst opened the second half on a 23-9 run to take a 16-point lead. The Rock would never get the deficit back to single digits as the Lakers scored 54 second half points, more than the 46 total points they scored when SRU won the first meeting this season by a 49-46 score.
 
SRU was paced by its three seniors in their final career game Wednesday night. Naquil Jones finished with a team-high 19 points, Jordan Marrow scored a career-high 17 points and George Chase scored a career-high 16 points.
 
Merdic Green and Christal Malalu each scored seven points, while Tony Gates scored four points and Guilherme Verardo added three points.
 
Slippery Rock shot 41.7 percent from the field (25-of-60), 25 percent from 3-point (3-of-12) and 74.1 percent from the free throw line (20-of-27). The Rock were outrebounded 36-35, marking just the fifth time all season that an opponent finished with more boards.
 
Mercyhurst shot 54.9 percent from the field (28-of-51), 42.9 percent from 3-point (6-of-14) and 66.7 percent from the free throw line (26-of-39). The Lakers scored 54 points in the second half, more than the total they scored in the first meeting between the teams this season when SRU posted a 49-46 win in Erie back on Jan. 3.
 
Lorenzo Collier led Mercyhurst with a game-high 23 points to pace five players in double figures. Malcolm Walters and Durrell McDonald each scored 13 points, John Majors scored 12 points and H'ian Hale scored 10 points.
 
SRU was playing in the playoffs for the seventh time in the last nine seasons under Reynolds. Seven of the 10 Rock players are slated to return next season with only three seniors, Jones, Chase and Marrow, set to leave the program.