SLIPPERY ROCK — When the chips were down, Indiana came up aces.

For the first 36 minutes of a PSAC West men's basketball showdown for second place Saturday at Morrow Field House, the leadchanged hands 12 times and neither Slippery Rock nor IUP ever led by more than five points.

“It was the grind-it-out game we expected coming in here,” IUP coach Joe Lombardi said.

Leading 55-50 with 2:49 to play, the Crimson Hawks outscored The Rock 9-2 the rest of the way to score a 64-52 road victory.

The 52 points marked SRU's lowest output of the season.

“You're not gonna beat anybody in this league scoring 52 points,” SRU coach Kevin Reynolds said. “I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed in the way this one ended.

“We have to pick ourselves up and get back at it in practice Monday. There's plenty of basketball to be played.”

The Rock (17-7, 7-3) lost for only the second time at Morrow Field House all season. Its next three games are on the road — at California, Mercyhurst and Gannon — before returning home for the regular season finale Feb. 26 against Edinboro.

“We just let down defensively late,” senior forward Maron Brown said. “Our defense had kept us in this game, but we let them get to the basket and make plays late.”

SRU trailed 33-28 at the half before scoring the first eight points of the second half to move ahead, 36-33. That would be its final lead of the day, however.

All-PSAC West player Darryl Webb had his usually stellar game for IUP, scoring 18 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Junior guard Scooter Renkin, averaging 20 minutes per game, played 34 minutes Saturday and had 13 points, nine rebounds and three steals.

With his team leading 50-45, Renkin stole the ball and drove the other way for a three-point play with 3:47 remaining, giving the Crimson Hawks a 53-45 advantage.

“We had some life after that, but we didn't expect them to get that kind of game out of Renkin,” Reynolds said.

“Maron Brown had a great game for us, Webb likewise for them. But their (Batman) had a Robin and ours didn't.”

Brown scored 24 points and added 16 rebounds for The Rock, posting the 40th double-double of his collegiate career. Brown has 1,171 points at The Rock — 29 points behind Bill Johnson for 10th on the program's all-time list.

Brown's 780 career rebounds are ninth all-time at The Rock.

Devin Taylor scored 11 points for SRUand Jabril Bailey added eight. No other Rock player scored more than five.

“More than likely, we're going to play them again,” Lombardi said of Slippery Rock. “They can play much better than they did today and so can we.

“I'm not suprised Scooter did what he did today. He's been getting more minutes because (guard) Ashton Smith has been hurt. I didn't know if he'd play at all today.”

Smith wound up with 12 points in 31 minutes on the floor.

IUP (16-5, 7-2) has won four straight games over The Rock in the past two years. If the two do meet in the PSAC Tournament, it will likely be at Indiana.

The Crimson Hawks have lost only once at home.

“We can win on the road, but we are better at home,” Lombardi said.

IUP (women) 63, SRU 47 — The Rock (3-19, 1-9) dropped its third straight game as Indiana continued its domination of this series.The Crimson Hawks (16-5, 8-1) defeated SRU for the ninth consecutive time. Their average margin of victory during that stretch has been 20 points.“We played hard for 40 minutes. We just didn't execute the gameplan well for that long,” SRU coach Tanya Longo said.“We wanted to maximize our possessions and limit them to one shot on the other end.”Rebounds were even at 34 in the game, but The Rock had 20 turnovers to IUP's 10. Indiana scored 16 points off turnovers.IUP led 19-6 early before going nearly seven minutes without scoring. A Bethany Caudill trey cut that gap to 19-16 with 6:09 left in the first half and the visitors only led by eight at intermission.A 12-2 run by the Crimson Hawks to begin the second half sealed The Rock's fate.Danielle Smith had 12 points and 12 rebounds for SRU. No other Rock player reached double figures.Katelyn Marshall had 22 points, Lacey Claar 13 points and seven assists for Indiana.