Boxscore

CLARION, Pa. –  Senior forward Maron Brown recorded a 22-point, 12-rebound "double-double" Saturday night to lead a balanced scoring attack by the victors in the Slippery Rock University men's basketball team's 79-71 win at Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference-Western Division rival Clarion University.

Junior guard Devin Taylor also grabbedf 12 rebounds in the game and was one of three Rock players who finished the game with 14 points. Senior guard Jabril Bailey and junior guard John Valeriano both also scored 14 points.

Saturday's win was the fourth straight recorded by The Rock, who improved their season records to 16-6 overall and 6-2 in PSAC-West action and remained in sole possession of second place in the division standings.

The win also gave SRU sweep of the two-game season series with Clarion, which was picked in a preseason poll of the division head coaches to finish second in this year's PSAC-West race.

The Rock will look to continue its roll Wednesday when it hosts last-place Lock Haven (1-17, 0-7 PSAC-W) in an 8 p.m. game in Morrow Field House.

Saturday's loss was the third straight suffered by Clarion and dropped the Golden Eagles' season records to 12-7 overall, 3-5 against division rivals.

The Rock trailed by 10 points, 37-27, at the halftime intermission after shooting a frigid 26% (9-35) from the field and 22% (2-9) from 3-point range in the first 20 minutes of action. Clarion, meanwhile, connected on 50% (13-26) of its field goal attempts in the opening stanza.

The second half was an entirely different story as SRU made 60% (18-30) of its field goal attempts and 56% (5-9) of its long-range shots in the final 20 minutes to finish the game with a 42% efficiency on field goal attempts and a 39% reading from beyond the arc.

Clarion cooled off to a 33% (9-27) shooting effort in the second half with a 17% (1-7) showing from long range to finish with 42% and 23% efficiencies in the respective categories.

Behind the lead of Brown and Taylor, SRU enjoyed a 42-36 rebounding advantage and the guests also had less turnovers, 15-12.

SRU never led in the first half of action and trailed by as many as 19 points (31-12, 5:30) before outscoring the Golden Eagles by a 15-6 margin to trim the deficit to 10 points.

Clarion led by 11 points (52-41) with 14:20 left to play in the game, only to see The Rock run off nine unanswered points and outscore the hosts by a 14-3 margin in the next four minutes and take their first lead of the game, 55-54, on a layup by junior guard #Tommy Kelly at the midway mark of the final period.

The Golden Eagles regained the lead at 56-55, but that proved to be mere speed bump on The Rock's road to victory as SRU responded with 12 unanswered points to take a 67-56 lead with 6:15 left to play.

Clarion trimmed the margin to four points on three occasions in the final six minutes but came up short in its comeback effort.

Notes:

Brown moved into 10th place on SRU's career rebounding list Saturday night when he improved his three-year total to 756. He ranks 13th in career scoring with 1,130 points, Brown needs five rebounds to move ahead of Myron Brown (1987-91) into ninth place on the rebounding chart and 10 points to leap to 11th place on the scoring chart ... Saturday's double-double was Brown's 14th this winter, which matched his career-high total recorded last winter. He is one D-D shy of the school record set by Denell Stephens in 2008-09 ... The next Rock win will move third-year Rocki head coach Kevin Reynolds into a tie for seventh place on the SRU career wins chart. He needs five wins to take over sole possession of sixth place ... Reynolds is now 4-2 all-time vs. Clarion ... With Saturday's triumph, The Rock bettered its season win total of a year ago (15-12) ... The Rock will retire Kyle Camper's jersey as part of next Saturday's 3 p.m. home game vs. Indiana (Pa.). Camper, who played one season at SRU as a graduate student after playing at Division I Iona College, set the PSAC record with 305 assists (10.5 per game) and also scored 10.0 points per game to average a double-double for The Rock's 2008-09 PSAC semifinalist squad.