PITTSBURGH, Pa. – The Geneva College men's basketball team put together one of its best performances in years in the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) semifinals on Thursday night at second-seeded Chatham, and the result was a dominating 91-63 victory over the Cougars.  The Golden Tornadoes stormed out to a big lead and never looked back in reaching their first PAC Championship game in school history, which will occur at Grove City on Saturday night.  With the victory, Geneva improved to 14-13.

Chatham had swept both games with Geneva earlier this year, including a 17-point victory two weeks ago on Geneva's Senior Day.  But the Golden Tornadoes seemed to have found something recently, and it resulted in three straight road wins coming into Thursday's semifinal matchup, and Geneva didn't slow down against the Cougars.

Senior Nick Rusyn (Salem, Ohio/Salem) opened the scoring on the first possession of the game with a bucket.  A jumper by senior Ethan Moose (New Castle, Pa./Neshannock) made it 4-0 before Chatham got on the scoreboard.  It would prove to be the closest the Cougars would get all night.  Geneva scored the next 11 points of the game, five from junior Joel Stutz (Evans City, Pa./Butler County Community College), four from Moose, and the run was capped off by a three-pointer from sophomore Matt Veynovich (Pompono Beach, Fla./Highlands Academy).  That gave Geneva a 15-2 lead just over four minutes in.

Geneva continued its assault against the Cougars, as Chatham had no answers for the Golden Tornadoes.  Geneva was getting contributions from just about everyone, including freshman Lyle Tipton (Glenside, Pa./Phil-Mont Christian) who scored nine points over a two-minute stretch to extend Geneva's lead to 40-17 with just over five minutes remaining in the half.  The only hiccup of the game occurred over the last four minutes before halftime, with the Cougars finishing the half on a 10-0 run to close to within 44-32 at the break.  Eight different players scored for Geneva in the half, led by Moose and Tipton who each had nine points.

Chatham cut the Geneva lead down to ten points, 47-37, early in the second half, but it was all Geneva from that point on.  Another three-pointer by Veynovich five minutes later increased the Geneva lead to 61-43.  A three-pointer from Stutz with 8:09 remaining made it 72-51, and the rout was on.  The Golden Tornadoes never gave Chatham a chance the rest of the way, increasing their lead at one point to 30 points, 89-59, before closing out the dominating 91-63 victory.

Stutz continued his recent strong play with a career-high 20 points to lead Geneva, including four three-pointers.  Moose had another double-double with 13 points and 15 rebounds.  Rusyn added 16 points, Veynovich 12 points, including 3-of-3 from long range, Tipton 11 points and sophomore Amos Luptak (Sewickely, Pa./Quaker Valley) contributed 10 points.  It was once again a very balanced effort by the Golden Tornadoes, who shot 57% from the floor, including 9-of-19 (47%) from three-point range.  Geneva also outrebounded Chatham 39-30.  The Cougars, who made 16-of-29 three-pointers two weeks ago against Geneva, made just 4-of-18 from long range.

"What a performance by these guys tonight," said Head Coach Jeff Santarsiero.  "This was one of the best performances I can remember in a long time.  These guys are just so confident right now, and they're playing at a really high-level.  That's four straight road games we've won, which is very hard to do.  I thought Joel was terrific, Matt shot it great again, and Moose and Rusyn continue to play well as seniors.  But we got contributions from all over the place.  These guys don't want this season to end, and they are playing like it.  We're excited for the chance to go play for a championship on Saturday night."

Geneva will head to Grove City to take on the top-seed Wolverines on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. for the PAC Championship.  Grove City swept the season series with the Golden Tornadoes, though both games were competitive.


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.