Déjà vu struck Wright State and Cleveland State Wednesday evening. In a battle where players got bloodied and the all-time series was tied between the two programs, Dayton Dunbar alum Andre Yates hit a 3-pointer in the final minute to lift the Vikings to a 55-50 win over the Raiders.
Cleveland State now leads the all-time series over Wright State 32-31.
“This was a hard-fought battle,” Cleveland State coach Gary Waters said. “I can’t remember a game that Cleveland State and Wright State have played that hasn’t gone down to the end and fought hard. Both teams deserved to win the game.”
Meanwhile, Wright State head coach Billy Donlon said the Raiders did things late that cost the Raiders the victory. WSU finished the contest missing five of its final eight free throws.
“It is a typical battle in the history of our series,” Donlon said. “We had the lead for the majority of the last seven minutes of the game, but when you go 15-of-24 from the foul line and miss a lot of them late, that is what the game came down to.”
Yates’ 3-pointer came from the corner as WSU ran a triangle-2 defense. The scheme left Yates wide open for his only bucket of the contest.
“That was tremendous for him,” Waters said. “They ran this triangle and two and we had worked on that in practice yesterday and we knew that person on the side would be open and everyone executed the play properly. But Andre had to step up and hit it and that was a good hit for him.”
Yates’ 3 came after CSU shot 2-of-18 from behind the arc. The Raiders’ defensive setup was a roll of the dice that was working well for Donlon’s squad up until Yates’ 3. Donlon said out of the 15 or 16 possessions WSU ran the triangle defense, CSU only scored twice.
“I just didn’t want (Charlie) Lee, (Trey) Lewis or (Anton) Grady to beat us so we stayed triangle the possession Yates made the 3,” Donlon said. “Credit him for making it.”
WSU’s Michael Karena was the Raiders’ leading scorer with a career-high 18 points after missing part of the first half after drawing blood on an incidental elbow. Cleveland State was led by Grady who had 16.
Lewis hit a quick layup seconds into the game as CSU had an early 4-0 lead. From that point on, the Vikings maintained a slim margin throughout the first half as WSU never led. CSU’s largest lead was six in the first half.
WSU guard Kendall Griffin hit a couple of 3s in the first half and led WSU’s scorers with eight points going into halftime as the Raiders trailed 28-26.
After a pair of Karena layups, the Raiders took their first lead of the contest within the first minute of the second half.
The contest was a teeter-totter the rest of the way as the lead changed four times in the second half with neither team leading by more than five in the second half.
WSU held its biggest lead of the game with 6:43 left when Thomasson made a pair of free throws to give the Raiders a 49-44 lead. From that point on, WSU only scored one point as the Vikings finished on an 11-1 run to close out the contest.
“We missed free throws,” Griffin said. “We were getting to the line, we were running a good offense, just missed free throws. Really, really frustrating.”
Cleveland State showed a zone defense late, which disrupted WSU’s offense.
“They were playing four guards so it was hard to match up with them,” Waters said. “I took a chance on that. If they hit a shot, we were going to be out of that thing quickly. I wanted to see and then they got kind of hesitant and they were backing out. When I saw that, I said, ‘We might as well stay in that the whole time.’”
