Angwin, Calif. – The men's basketball team led wire-to-wire in an 86-71 win over Pacific Union College. With the victory the team clinched the final playoff spot in next week's Cal Pac Championship Tournament.
The Golden Eagles wasted no time in setting the tone in this game as they jumped out to an early lead and never looked back.
Five minutes into the game, La Sierra held a 19-9 lead. Over the next two minutes they nearly doubled the lead, with a 9-0 run, at 28-9. The two teams played relatively even for the remainder of the first half, with La Sierra going into the halftime locker room with a 49-33 lead.
It was much of the same for La Sierra to open the second half. After the Pioneers trimmed the lead to 51-39 in the first couple minutes of the half, the Golden Eagles answered with a 13-3 run, pushing out to a 42-64.
But the Pioneers weren't going to go down without a fight. Over the next five minutes, Pacific Union used a 13-0 run of their own, to cut the lead to 64-55. But that would be as close as they would get.
Over the final ten minutes of play, La Sierra built their lead back to 82-59, their largest lead of the night, with 5:19 to play.
The Golden Eagles were able to control play starting on the defensive end, which melted over to the offensive end of the court. As a team, the Golden Eagles shot 35-of-72 from the field (49%), including 8-of-20 from the three-point line. They also finished with 14 assists and 10 steals.
La Sierra had four players who scored in double figures. Andre Marquez led all scorers with 23 points (shooting 10-for 20 from the field) in addition to five rebounds and four assists. Isaiah Hawkins scored 15 points with four rebounds, while Lance Jones added 13 points and three rebounds. CJ Goldsmith rounded out the double-digit scorers with 12 points and a game-high seven assists, with three steals and two rebounds.
Also factoring in the scoring was Robert Looper who finished a perfect 4-for-4 from the field for eight points to go along with eight rebounds. But it was Kevin Batiste who led the team with 12 rebounds, along with six points.
While the team has clinched the No. 4 seed in the tournament, they must await the outcome of Saturday night's game between Simpson University and California Maritime Academy to know who their opponent will be. The Golden Eagles will face the winner of Saturday's match-up.
The men's basketball team, now 4-5 in the Cal Pac (4-19 overall), will close out the regular season at Menlo College, on Saturday night, at 8:30pm.
