ALTOONA, Pa. -- Penn State needed a bounce-back win after getting destroyed its last time out, and silky smooth point guard Sam Sessoms helped deliver one with a terrific performance Thursday night.
Sessoms scored 26 points as the Nittany Lions beat St. Francis Brooklyn, 74-59, at the Bryce Jordan Center. Sessoms shot 10-of-13 from the field and 6-of-7 from the foul line as Penn State improved to 2-1 under new coach Micah Shrewsberry.
The Lions were coming off an 81-56 thrashing at UMass, but they regrouped against the overmatched Terriers from the Northeast Conference.
John Harrar had 14 points and 13 rebounds, and Seth Lundy added 11 points and six rebounds for Penn State.
Shrewsberry put together a relatively easy early season schedule that would help his team establish some confidence. The performance at UMass was shockingly bad, but the coach said he didn't want people to judge his team based on that kind of early season game.
"Winning is hard at all levels, and the one thing you learn when you coach for a really long time – not to say that I've coached for a really long time, but I'm upwards of 20 years already in my career – you learn that winning is hard and you learn to celebrate every single time," Shrewsberry said.
"No matter what you feel like, no matter what it looks like, you learn to celebrate it, and then you've got to learn from it. We'll look at it and then see where we can get better, see what we can do better, and we'll take tomorrow off to rest our legs, try and get healthy, and then get back to work and get ready for Monday."
Penn State's next game is against Cornell at home Monday.
WRESTLING WELCOMES
BACK FANS TO REC HALL
For the first time in nearly two years, the Penn State wrestling team was able to perform in front of fans at home Thursday night. A sellout crowd of nearly 6,500 turned out at Rec Hall to watch the Lions beat Army, 32-7, in the first home dual meet of the season.
From Penn State's release:
The Nittany Lions have wrestled in front of 56 straight sellouts in Rec Hall and 62 of 64 including six of eight sellouts at the 16,000-seat Bryce Jordan Center). The dual also marked the first time Penn State wrestled in front of its home fans since Feb. 23, 2020, when Penn State beat American in Rec Hall.
You can watch Cael Sanderson's post-match press conference below:
Post-Dual Presser at LionVision
— Penn State WRESTLING (@pennstateWREST) November 19, 2021
Penn State 32, Army West Point 7
Cael Sanderson Presserhttps://t.co/Zyv3VmRcfi#PSUwr
Here are the results of each bout, from GoPSUSports:
125: Baylor Shunk PSU dec. Ryan Chauvin AWP, 8-4 -- 3-0
133: #1 Roman Bravo-Young PSU tech fall Dominic Carone AWP; 26-11 (TF; 6:36) -- 8-0
141: #29 Corey Shie AWP dec. Brandon Meredith PSU, 5-2 -- 8-3
149: #27 Beau Bartlett PSU dec. #20 P.J. Ogunsanya AWP, 3-1 (SV) -- 11-3
157: #32 Markus Hartman AWP maj. dec. Terrell Barraclough PSU, 9-0 -- 11-7
165: #32 Creighton Edsell PSU dec. Christian Hunt AWP, 4-3 -- 14-7
174: #1 Carter Starocci PSU tech fall Clayton Fielden AWP, 23-5 (TF; 6:56) -- 19-7
184: #1 Aaron Brooks PSU maj. dec. #28 Brad Laughlin AWP, 21-7 -- 23-7
197: #4 Max Dean PSU tech fall #21 J.T. Brown AWP, 17-1 (6:49) -- 28-7
285: #5 Greg Kerkvliet PSU maj. dec. Brandon Phillips AWP, 14-3 -- 32-7
HOCKEY HEADS TO
MINNESOTA THIS WEEKEND
Penn State's hockey teams plays at No. 7 Minnesota on Friday night at 8 and Saturday night at 9. The Lions got off to a strong start this season at 6-1, but they have dropped four games in a row -- two to Ohio State and two against No. 2 Michigan.
Following this two-game series at Minnesota, Penn State will play games Tuesday and Wednesday at St. Thomas, which also is in Minnesota.
