BEAVER FALLS, Pa. – The Geneva College men's basketball team's early season struggles continued on Saturday inside Metheny Fieldhouse against Waynesburg in its Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) opener.  The Golden Tornadoes jumped out to a halftime lead but saw the Yellow Jackets finish the game better to defeat Geneva 65-62.  The Golden Tornadoes are still looking for their first win of the season with an overall record of 0-3, 0-1 in the PAC.

The afternoon began with a pregame ceremony celebrating the 2024 PAC Championship team, with a highlight video included, and then after warmups, the game got underway.

Neither team could get much going offensively in the early going.  Senior Payton Triplett's layup two minutes in was the first points of the game, and eight minutes into the contest, the score was tied 10-10.

Back-to-back three-pointers from Triplett and freshman Tommy Coletti gave Geneva a little bit of a margin, but Waynesburg answered with a run to pull within 19-18 with seven minutes remaining before halftime.

The Golden Tornadoes followed with their best stretch of the game, scoring ten straight points.  Junior Jonathan Bertovich hit two free throws, junior Nick Million hit a jumper, Coletti scored on a putback, graduate student KC Johns knocked down two free throws, and senior Mark Rachic scored on a drive, and Geneva eventually took a 31-22 lead into the break.

The men couldn't carry that play into the second half, though, as Waynesburg slowly began to chip away at the Geneva lead, pulling within two points, 47-45, midway through the half.  A three-pointer from Triplett and a layup from Johns restored a seven-point advantage, but the Golden Tornadoes went cold from there.

Waynesburg scored the next ten points to take its first lead of the game as Geneva went scoreless for almost five minutes.  Reserve guard Casey Keesee, who hadn't scored yet this season for the Yellow Jackets, got hot from long range and led the Waynesburg comeback.

Geneva took its last lead of the game, 59-58, on a three-point play from Rachic with 3:25 left, but on the next possession, Keesee scored and was fouled, and after his missed free throw was tipped back out to him, Keesee drained his fourth three-pointer of the half, on five tries, to give Waynesburg a 62-58 lead.

Geneva responded with two straight baskets by Rachic to pull even with a minute to go, but a bucket from Antone Baker with 40 seconds left gave Waynesburg the advantage, and the Golden Tornadoes couldn't respond before falling, 65-62.

Rachic led the scoring with 17 points for Geneva, while Triplett added 13 points and graduate student Ryan Rachic 10 points and 10 rebounds.  Geneva shot just 23-of-60 (38.3%) from the floor and 8-of-25 (32.0%) from three-point range while giving up 15 offensive rebounds, including a couple key ones late. 

"It was a good day to celebrate last year's squad and what they accomplished, but this was a winnable game for us and we didn't make the plays we needed to," said Head Coach Jeff Santarsiero.  "We got outworked tonight, especially in the final minutes, so credit Waynesburg.  Obviously Keesee had a big day for them, and we didn't expect that, but we still have to adjust.  We just can't hit shots right now, and we have to figure a way to get our offense going.  We also gave up too many offensive rebounds.  We have a quick turnaround now for Thiel."

Baker led Waynesburg with 17 points, while Keesee was the only other Yellow Jacket in double figures with 14 points, including a 4-of-5 effort from deep.  Waynesburg shot 25-of-65 (38.5%) from the floor but won the game from three-point range where the Yellow Jackets made 9-of-19 (47.7%) from deep.

Geneva will try to get into the win column on Tuesday when the Golden Tornadoes host Thiel at 7:30 p.m.