Melih Tunca scored 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting as Penn State rallied for a 76-68 home victory over Fairfield on Monday at University Park, Pa., in the season opener for both teams.
Kayden Mingo chipped in 15 points and Ivan Juric notched 13 for Penn State (1-0), which trailed by as many as 13 points early in the game and also trailed by six with less than four minutes remaining. The Nittany Lions ended the game on a 16-2 run.
Braden Sparks scored 25 points to pace Fairfield (0-1). He shot 5-of-12 from 3-point range, while his teammates were a combined 1-of-21 from outside the arc. Brandon Benjamin added 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting to go with 10 rebounds for the Stags.
Fairfield stormed out of the gates, scoring the first 12 points of the game, although Penn State quickly caught up at 17-17. The teams were neck-and-neck the rest of the half, as they were tied at 22, 24, 26, 35 and finally at 37-37 heading into the locker room.
Sparks led all scorers with 16 points in the first half, while Tunca and Mingo each registered 10 first-half points to pace Penn State.
The game was tied once again early in the second half when the Stags scored seven straight points to go ahead 50-43. Declan Wucherpfennig and Benjamin accounted for all the points during that burst.
The Nittany Lions kept fighting and surged ahead 55-54 with Sasa Ciani and Dominick Stewart doing the bulk of the damage. They still led by a point, 60-59, with just over five minutes left when Benjamin’s layup ignited a 7-0 run by the visitors.
However, Penn State responded with its emphatic game-ending run. Juric began the uprising with a 3-pointer and then scored on a second-chance layup. After a bucket by Sparks, Tunca nailed a 3-pointer to tie it and Mingo converted a three-point play with 1:27 to go.
Tibor Mirtic’s putback with 39 seconds left made it a two-possession game, and Tunca knocked down 3-of-4 free throws to ice it.
