Riverside, Calif. – The La Sierra University Men's Basketball season has come to a close after a unique and exciting 2020-2021 campaign, even with COVID restraints.
The Men's Basketball team finished the season with an overall record of 4-10 and 2-8 in conference play. Their record doesn't shine light on the fact the team competed and stayed in most games and continued to improve, even qualifying for post season play in the Cal Pac Conference "Phase 2" Tournament, where they fought for the title against UC Merced in the Championship game.
The way the evening began, it looked as if it would be the Golden Eagles celebrating a victory at midcourt. La Sierra opened the game on fire, jumping out to an early 14-5 lead as an ice-cold UC Merced team had difficulty scoring. Over the first seven minutes, the Golden Eagels limited the Bobcats to just five points on 2-of-11 shooting, including only 1-of-6 from beyond the arc, and they went scoreless for a period of nearly four minutes in that opening stretch.
The Golden Eagles shot a meager 4-of-23 from the 3-point line in their semifinal win over Pacific Union, but against UCM, La Sierra came out firing, making five of its first eight 3-point attempts. Leading 14-5, Kobe Stallings banked in a 3, and on the next possession, he netted an open 3 on the other side of the court, and right after that, Dylan Damico hit the team's third consecutive triple to go up 23-6. Kobe Stallings made his third three a minute later to put La Sierra up 26-8. The Golden Eagles finished the game 8-of-19 from beyond the arc.
It took seven minutes or so for UCM to heat up, but once the Bobcats did, they caught fire. The Bobcats got some momentum with their transition game, scoring eight quick transition points in the span of just over two minutes to make it a 26-16 contest with about 6:30 left in the half.
The Golden Eagles battled back in the second half, tying the game at 40-40, but UCM had too many weapons to contain. With Westlake and Jonah Cottrell (14 points) scoring on the perimeter, Chiwike E'denchukwu (14 points, 10 rebounds) and Robert Benson (nine rebounds) were powering their way inside and controlling the boards.
Uriel Lejtman, who scored 12 of La Sierra's first 14 points in the opening six minutes, did not score the remainder of the half as the UCM defense completely threw the Golden Eagles offense out of sync, but he did hustle his way to 22 points to lead the Golden Eagles. Weston McKenney added 12 points, Kobe Stallings finished with nine, and Ivan Egbunike had eight points and five boards. -Cal Pac Website
We would like to congratulate, Ivan Egbunike and Uriel Lejtman for earning Phase 2 All Cal Pac Conference Team Recognition.
It was a pleasure watching you all play. Thank you for your dedication and sacrifices to make this season happen!
