Helping the Eagles soar
Eastern Washington’s double figure lead at Weber State had dwindled to one as the game reached the final minute and the shot clock was running out.
Freshman Rodney Stuckey whipped the ball to freshman Matt Penoncello, who calmly buried a 3-pointer and the Eagles went on to close out a critical 76-73 Big Sky Conference win.
“He has enough toughness to compete every possession defensively and he’ll put shots up,” second-year coach Mike Burns said. “It takes courage to do that at certain times and he possesses that.”
Penoncello has seven double-figure games in his young career but five have come in league play as the Eagles suddenly find themselves battling near the top.
“My confidence has improved a lot,” Penoncello said. “It came back up slowly. I’ve got confidence from everybody now, the guys and coaches, they’re not afraid of me taking the shots.”
The Eagles stumbled out of the gate when league play started, losing their first two for an overall five-game losing streak.
Then the 6-foot-5 Penoncello was inserted into the starting lineup and a three-game winning streak followed, starting with an 89-70 romp at Portland State. With the Moscow grad in the lineup, the Eags have gone 7-2 in league play and could move into a tie for second if they can beat Montana tonight.
“Some of these games we wouldn’t have won if he wouldn’t have made the shots we really needed,” Stuckey said. “I knew sitting out with him last year he’s a competitive guy. It took a while to get his feet wet.”
“It’s a completely different game, it’s more physical and the intensity, they’re coming at you the full 40 minutes,” Penoncello said. “I just realized what I had to do to be successful in that kind of game.”
His first contributions were on defense and his offense has followed.
“My job is to bring energy to the team, go out and try to lock my guy up and just do whatever,” he said. “I have to feel my spot, see what they need me to do in the game and go give it to them.”
That’s what Burns expected.
“Matt’s got a great deal of physical and mental toughness,” he said. “It can be summed up by what he told me last spring. He said, ‘Coach, I’m going to play hard enough that I’m not going to give you any choice but to play me.’ He’s lived up to his word.”
Back problems when practice started last year prompted Penoncello to redshirt. Other than the physical rust, he said the time spent in the stands with fellow first-year players Stuckey and starting forward Kellen Williams helped.
“It wasn’t a real good season (8-20) last year,” he said. “We could have headed that way this year when we were down for a while but we fought back. We didn’t want to go down that road, we realized how that felt and it helped us pull out of it.”
Surprisingly, although Penoncello grew up hoping he could one day be a Vandal, the decision to attend Eastern was easy, even though his father is a mechanical engineering professor at Idaho.
“The Vandals just weren’t right for me, I wanted to get away from home,” Penoncello said. “I think (my parents) are happy because I’m so close to home but I’m not right there. It’s not too far away to go home or for them to come to games.”
He is, however, still a Vandal fan.
“That one game of the year, the one time I want them to lose is when we play them,” he said. “(Coach) Leonard Perry is a great guy, I have nothing but good things to say about him. I hate to see what they’re going through down there. I’m rooting for them. I want to see them win.”
For now Penoncello has other things to focus on.
“He plays good D and hits open shots,” Stuckey said. “If he does that he’s going to be fine.”
Burns added, “I think with any young player, success breeds success. Experience, combined with his toughness and work ethic are going to keep improving all aspects of his game.”
For his part, Penoncello just wants to keep the team going in the right direction.
“We’re right there, he said. “Day-by-day, practice-by-practice, we’re getting closer.”