By David Carducci

Record-Courier staff writer

MUNCIE, Ind. -- No Haminn Quaintance.

No Isaac Knight.

No problem.

Playing without the services of the only two centers in their regular rotation, Kent State's undersized Golden Flashes still managed to pull off a rare wire-to-wire 60-54 win Wednesday night at Ball State's Worthen Arena.

It was Jim Christian's 100th victory in five seasons as Kent State head coach.

Worthen Arena is a building that even the best KSU teams from the last decade hated to visit. The Flashes hadn't won there since 1998 and were just 2-9 in the unfriendly arena since it was built back in 1992.

"What this proved is that we can win anywhere and with whoever we have, as long as we play hard, we stick to the game plan and we pay attention to coach (Jim) Christian," said Kent State sophomore Julian Sullinger, who at just 6-foot-3 was forced to play the bulk of the team's minutes at center.

Knight sat out with an ankle injury suffered Tuesday night on the final play of practice.

"When we woke up, the trainer said he couldn't play," said Christian.

As for Quaintance, he stayed in Kent "because he had some personal things to take care of," said Christian.

Junior forward Mike Scott said that he text-messaged Quaintance before tip-off to tell the team's regular starting center that he "didn't know what the situation with him was, but we are going to try to get this game for us, even though we are short-handed. Making that happen was big. I don't know too many teams that could lose two important players like that and still win a game like this on the road."

The Flashes may have caught a break with Ball State suspending arguably its best inside scorer, 6-6 senior D'Andre Peyton, prior to the game.

Even with Peyton, Ball State would have had a difficult time keeping up with the Flashes as they sprinted ahead with their best first half of the season. KSU spent the last 20 minutes holding off a series of Ball State runs.

"We started the game a little bit flat," said Ball State rookie coach Ronny Thompson. "They had more energy than us at the start, and I thought that was the key to the game."

KSU opened with a flurry of long-range jumpers, most coming from the left corner. First it was freshman Chris Singletary for a 3 in the game's opening seconds. His only basket of the game still managed to give the Flashes the lead for good.

Another freshman, Rodriquez Sherman, connected from the same spot less than a minute later. Senior Armon Gates checked in and hit the exact same baseline 3 just inside the 14-minute mark, starting his own personal first-half run of long-range jumpers (5-of-7 from the arc) that accounted for 15 of his eventual game-high 21 points and helped KSU to a 36-26 lead at the break.

"Armon is a really streaky shooter, and when he gets going, we look for him," said Christian. "He has shot that way three games in a row for us. That stretch is probably as well as he has played since he has been here, and I'm proud of him because in two of those games, he hasn't started."

Sticking with the same youthful starting lineup that he used in Saturday night's win over Bowling Green, Christian brought both Gates and fellow senior Omni Smith off the bench Wednesday.

Smith responded with a near-game-clinching 3-pointer on a pick-and-fade from Scott with 3:57 remaining, helping KSU hold off Ball State's second-half run by giving the Flashes a 53-46 lead just two minutes after the Cardinals had pulled to within one point.

The Cardinals twice cut the lead to one point in the second half -- first at 40-39 after a 9-0 run that ended at the 15-minute mark, and again with six minutes to play on a fallaway jumper by 6-10 center Micah Rollin.

Every time Ball State found the ball with a chance to take the lead, KSU managed to come up with a stop on a series of one-and-outs that featured big rebounds in traffic by Scott (nine points, eight rebounds) and Sullinger (seven points, seven rebounds).

"Coach would let us know we needed a stop, and we kept finding guys who would step up with big-time plays," said Sullinger. "We just kept boxing out and making sure they only got one shot."

Rollin and Skip Mills led Ball State (6-13, 2-4) with 14 points and five rebounds each, but both players admitted after the game that Kent State "just wanted it more."

Beating Ball State puts Kent State (11-8, 4-2) in a favorable position in the league standings with two early road wins.

"Let's be honest: We now have two road wins in the league, and there are not many teams sitting here who can say that," said Christian. "This is one we can build on. The thing I'm happy about with this team is that we have played four road games out of six league games, which is more than anybody. We've been in a position to win every road game. That's all you have to do in this league, and then somebody on your team has to step up and make a play. In this game, we did that. To have two road wins six games in is good for us, especially with the team we have."