(Over the next two weeks, Geneva Athletics is going to be remembering ten highlights from throughout the 2019-20 season, in no particular order.  We're thankful for the hard work our student-athletes put in throughout the year, along with our coaches, trainers and athletics staff.  Attached are highlights from men's basketball's PAC Semifinal win at Chatham.)

The Geneva men's basketball team entered the 2019-20 season with high expectations, with the Golden Tornadoes being led by a strong group of seniors, including starters Ethan Moose (New Castle, Pa./Neshannock), Noah Damazo (Beaver Falls, Pa./Blackhawk) and Nick Rusyn (Salem, Ohio/Salem).  Moose entered his senior campaign as one of the best Geneva players in recent history, while Damazo and Rusyn had both developed into two of the strongest players in the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC).

The team got off to a bit of an inconsistent start to the season.  The Golden Tornadoes opened the season with a home loss to Kenyon, but followed that with a victory at Valley Forge where Geneva overcame a 20-point first half deficit to pull out a win, with Moose narrowly missing his first career triple-double with 27 points, 15 rebounds and nine assists.

Over the next two months, Geneva seemed to alternate wins and losses, and after splitting two games at the West Palm Beach Tournament in Florida over Christmas break, the Golden Tornadoes returned to campus for the second semester with a 5-6 record, prepared to focus on PAC play.

The second semester did not get off to a good start.  Geneva lost its first four games of the semester, falling to 1-5 in the conference.  The Golden Tornadoes were in every game, but Geneva was unable to pull out victories late.

Geneva rebounded, though, beginning with a home victory over Saint Vincent.  That victory was the start of a five-game winning streak for the Golden Tornadoes, with the last two victories coming in dramatic, last-second fashion as Lyle Tipton (Glenside, Pa./Phil-Mont Christian) hit a jumper at the buzzer to defeat W&J and then Rusyn had a tip-in with two seconds remaining to win at Waynesburg.  Unfortunately, the win at Waynesburg came at a cost as Damazo suffered an injury that game that would keep him out for the remainder of the season.

However, a tough portion of Geneva's schedule followed with the Golden Tornadoes facing the top three teams in the PAC, and Geneva lost all three games.  That sent the Golden Tornadoes into the final week of the regular season with a 6-8 record in the PAC and staring at two road games at Saint Vincent and Thiel, two notoriously tough places to win.

To make matters worse, Moose had suffered a minor injury that would prevent him playing in two games, including the game at Saint Vincent.

Despite those things, the Golden Tornadoes came together for one last run to finish the season.  Geneva headed to Saint Vincent without their top two leading scorers in Moose and Damazo and put up an impressive performance.  The Golden Tornadoes fell down by 13 points early in the game, but led by Tipton's career-high 33 points, Geneva stormed back to defeat Saint Vincent.  The Golden Tornadoes then finished the regular season with a win at Thiel, a place they hadn't won in 11 years, as Moose made his return to the lineup.

Those victories earned Geneva the #5 seed in the PAC playoffs where the Golden Tornadoes headed to #4 W&J to take on the Presidents in the PAC quarterfinals.  Geneva jumped out to an early 15-point lead, but W&J battled back to take a lead midway through the second half.  The game was tight the remainder of the way, but Geneva made the plays it needed to late to pull out a 79-77 victory.

That win sent Geneva into the PAC semifinals to face the #2 seed Chatham, a team that had defeated the Golden Tornadoes in both match-ups during the regular season.  However, the game couldn't have gone much better for Geneva.

The Golden Tornadoes jumped out to an early 15-2 lead and never looked back.  The Geneva lead would never get lower than ten points in the game.  The Golden Tornadoes led by as many as 23 points in the first half, and while Chatham would cut the deficit to ten points in the second half, Geneva easily pulled away for a convincing 91-63 victory.  Joel Stutz (Evans City, Pa./Butler County Community) led six Golden Tornadoes with 20 points, and Geneva advanced to the PAC Championship game for the first time since joining the PAC ten years ago.

Once again, Geneva found itself on the road for the PAC Championship, traveling to rival Grove City to take on the top seeded Wolverines.  Grove City came out hot and took an 18-point lead late in the first half.  The Golden Tornadoes rallied, though, pulling within one point, 60-59, with ten minutes remaining.  Unfortunately, Grove City pulled away in the closing minutes to win 86-70, and Geneva saw its magical run come to an end.

Also coming to an end was the storied career of Moose.  He finished his career as the seventh-highest scorer (1,668 points) and fifth-highest rebounder (810 rebounds) in school history.  He was named a First Team All-PAC selection as well as an NCCAA All-American.

"We had a strong group of veterans returning for this season, so we set our goal for the top," said Head Coach Jeff Santarsiero.  "We had our vision set on the championship game, and we scheduled ourselves a challenging non-conference schedule.  We had to battle through some injuries and illnesses throughout the year, though, which contributed to some of our struggles.  Our 1-5 start in the conference play was not what we expected, but we persevered."

"Despite those early season struggles, we never kept working," continued Coach Santarsiero.  "Things started to change with our first match-up against Saint Vincent, where we started to adjust our playing style and found some success that worked.  Losing Noah was a huge blow, but other guys stepped up.  Besides Ethan, Nick was so good the last half of the season, and Lyle really began to step up for us as well, including his huge game at Saint Vincent.  So we were a really confident group heading into the postseason and felt we were a better team than our record indicated, with injuries and illness really holding us back."

"We played so well in the PAC playoffs, closing with such a great environment at Grove City in the championship game," Coach Santarsiero finished.  "We came up just a little short, but that doesn't diminish what we accomplished.  Our seniors were great all season, including our fourth senior, Matthew Partridge, who was a quiet leader for us.  Ethan will obviously go down as one of the best in Geneva history.  He's a fairly soft-spoken kid, but his game did his talking for him.  This group was truly a pleasure to coach, and I know all our assistants and managers put in a lot of hard work throughout the season as well to make this a season to remember."


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.