Nov 29, 2017 3 min read

WAYNESBURG – Mark Christner has never won his Presidents’ Athletic Conference opener as the Waynesburg University men’s basketball coach.

That is, until Wednesday night, when Jon Knab’s game-winning jump shot gave the Waynesburg University men’s basketball team a 53-49 victory over Grove City at Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse.

It is the first PAC-opening win for the Yellow Jackets since 2008 – two years before Christner’s tenure as head coach began – a 105-104 double-overtime win at Thiel.

With the game tied at 49-49 and 30 seconds left, Knab made a midrange jumper to give the Jackets the lead.

“Jon’s mid-range game is really good,” Christner said. “If he can get there and elevate over somebody, we like that shot. I’m glad he made it.

Point guard Matt Popeck, a Washington High School graduate, said he knew it was Knab’s shot to take at the end of the game.

“That was definitely clutch,” Popeck said. “I was trying to get it to him because he was hitting all night.”

On the next possession, senior Kendall Paige caused a turnover and got fouled before making two free throws. Christner said that play is exactly why Paige is in the game in that situation, and that it was a culmination of a game of good defensive play.

“I thought our attention to detail was really important. As the game went on, we did a much better job defending some of their actions,” Christner said. “They had to go into the well that had to do a couple other things that also caught us off guard. We had active hands, and I think off the top of my head we had 15 turnovers.”

Knab led the Jackets with 18 points on eight-of-13 shooting and two-of-three from behind the arc. He also grabbed eight rebounds.

Popeck was the only other Yellow Jacket scorer in double digits as the freshman scored 10 points on four-of-14 shooting.

“Matt obviously struggled a little tonight in terms of making shots, but he’s not afraid to take them, either,” Christner said. “I liked his shot from the perimeter.”

Grove City got out to an early lead, but Waynesburg battled back late in the first half to tie the score at 30 apiece heading into halftime. The second half was a back-and-forth game, with neither team taking more than a five-point lead. Offense was few-and-far between in the second half, as both teams shot worse than 35 percent from the field and 25 percent from three-point range.

“It was obviously just an old-fashioned, set-the-clock-back-a-couple-decades kind of game,” Christner said. “I think to win it in the style we did, we’ve talked a lot about getting things right on the defensive end. I think we did a really good job down the stretch. Credit to our guys. They really bought in on that end, and they really grew up there.”