WASHINGTON, Pa. – The Geneva College men's basketball team seems to have found out how to have success on the road recently, and the #5-seed Golden Tornadoes continued their winning ways away from Beaver Falls in the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) quarterfinals at #4-seed W&J on Tuesday night.  Geneva led almost the entire game, making the plays it needed to late in order to defeat the Presidents, 79-77, giving the Golden Tornadoes their third road win in a week.  Geneva improved to 13-13 overall, and the Golden Tornadoes will need to continue to find success on the road as it advanced to take on #2-seed Chatham on Thursday night in the PAC semifinals.  

Things couldn't have started much better for the Golden Tornadoes, as Geneva came out hot from long range.  Sophomore Matt Veynovich (Pompono Beach, Fla./Highlands Academy) opened the scoring with a three-pointer just seconds into the game, and it would prove to be a sign of things to come.  Two minutes later, Veynovich knocked down another three-pointer followed by back-to-back three-pointers by junior Joel Stutz (Evans City, Pa./Butler County Community College), giving Geneva an early 14-4 lead six minutes into the game.  The Presidents, on the other hand, were cold early on.  The only troublesome detail for the Golden Tornadoes was that senior Nick Rusyn (Salem, Ohio/Salem) picked up two fouls in the first three minutes, which sent him to the bench for the rest of the half, and W&J would be able to take advantage of his absence later in the half.

Geneva's long-range prowess would continue as junior RJ Bell (Canonsburg, Pa./Canon McMillan) knocked down Geneva's fifth three-pointer in the opening ten minutes to give the Golden Tornadoes their biggest lead of the game, 21-6.  A layup by Stutz with 5:38 remaining in the half kept the margin at 29-15, but Geneva would go cold from there, and W&J would find success attacking the rim with Rusyn on the bench in foul trouble.

After Stutz's layup, the Presidents went on a 12-1 run over the next five minutes, with almost all of W&J's points coming inside on layups, before senior Ethan Moose (New Castle, Pa./Neshannock) hit a basket in the closing seconds to give Geneva a 32-27 lead at the halftime break.

Geneva's offensive cold spell continued to begin the second half, with the Golden Tornadoes failing to score for almost four minutes to open the half, enabling W&J to take its first lead of the game, 33-32.  Rusyn finally got Geneva on the board with a layup, regaining the lead 34-33.  However, a minute later a jumper by the Presidents with 15:32 left in the game gave W&J the lead back, 38-37.

Freshman Lyle Tipton (Glenside, Pa./Phil-Mont Christian) followed with a three-pointer from the wing to regain the lead for Geneva, 40-38, and it sparked a run for the Golden Tornadoes.  Stutz followed with a three-pointer, and a minute later Bell added another three-pointer to give Geneva a 48-40 lead.  After W&J cut it to three points, Bell drained another three-pointer to keep the margin at 51-45 with 10:39 remaining.

The Presidents refused to go away, though, with each team answering short runs with runs of their own.  With Geneva leading 55-49 after a three-point play by Tipton, W&J responded with eight straight points to take a 57-55 lead with 7:12 left.  The Presidents' lead would prove to be short-lived.  Moose answered with a jumper, followed by another three-pointer by Bell, giving Geneva the lead back, 60-57.  After W&J cut it to one, freshman Isaac Massie (Cross Lanes, W.Va./Homeschool) hit a three-pointer from the corner followed by a fast-break layup go push the Geneva lead back to 65-59 with 5:18 remaining.

Once again the Presidents responded with a short run, closing to within 67-65 with 2:50 remaining, but Moose and Rusyn answered with baskets to push the lead back out to 71-65 with 1:54 left.  The Golden Tornadoes then hit their free throws down the stretch, enabling Geneva to hang on despite two late three-pointers by Presidents, including one meaningless shot at the buzzer, to defeat W&J, 79-77.

The final box score showed a very balanced attack, as almost everyone that played contributed.  Moose finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds, while Bell also scored 14 points, shooting 4-of-7 from three-point range.  Stutz added 13 points, including 3-of-6 from long range, Tipton contributed 11 points, and Rusyn finished with 10 points despite playing just 13 foul-plagued minutes.  Geneva led for almost 37 minutes of the game.  The Golden Tornadoes shot 46% from the floor, including an 11-of-25 (44%) effort from three-point range.  W&J finished at 48% from the floor, but the Presidents hit just 6-of-18 (33%) from deep, and Geneva won the battle on the boards, 37-33.  W&J's Primo Zini led four Presidents in double figures with 18 points.

"This team is such a resilient group, and we just don't quit," said Head Coach Jeff Santarsiero.  "We got off to such a great start, but we knew W&J would make a run.  We got a little sloppy late in the first half, and not having Nick for most of that half hurt us as well.  I thought Joel played one of his best games of the season, and RJ continues to be huge for us off the bench with his three-point shooting.  Isaac's three-pointer from the corner late in the second half was really big as well.  This was an all-around team win, but this group isn't satisfied.  We don't want this season to end, and we're a confident team right now that knows we have more work to do, so we will enjoy this win for a minute but then quickly turn our attention to Chatham."

In the other PAC quarterfinal action, #1-seed Grove City defeated #8-seed Thiel, 76-62.  Chatham defeated #7-seed Waynesburg, 72-64, while #6-seed Saint Vincent upset #3-seed Westminster, 88-78.  If Geneva is able to defeat Chatham on Thursday, the Golden Tornadoes would either travel to Grove City for the championship game, or if Saint Vincent upset Grove City, Geneva would host the Bearcats for the PAC Championship on Saturday night.  Tipoff against Chatham is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.


Geneva College is a Christ-centered academic community that provides a comprehensive education to equip students for faithful and fruitful service to God and neighbor. Offering over 145 traditional undergraduate majors and programs, fully online Adult Degree Programs and high-demand graduate degrees, Geneva's programs are recognized for their high quality. Geneva is included on Kiplinger's Personal Finance's "2019 Best College Values" list and has one of the top undergraduate engineering programs in the nation, according to U.S. News and World Report. Adhering to the truth of Scripture, a Geneva education is grounded in God's Word as well as in a core curriculum designed to prepare students vocationally to think, write and communicate well in today's world.