LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Jan. 10, 2009) – It may have been the
opening game of Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic
Conference action tonight for the men's basketball teams from
Occidental College and Cal Lutheran University but the atmosphere
created in Rush Gymnasium was a late-season feeling.
After a tough pre-SCIAC schedule the Tigers showed significant
improvement tonight, despite the Kingsmen coming from behind to
claim a 53-46 victory over the Tigers, their first win over
Occidental in seven meetings, dating back to the 2004-05
season.
In the opening period of play CLU jumped out to an early lead, but
Oxy never let the gap grow to more than four before taking the lead
on a free-throw by Evan Shore with just over 10
minutes to play in the first half. The Tigers used a 9-3 run to
open up a six point advantage and took a 32-25 lead into the locker
room.
The Tigers maintained the lead until the 5:56 mark when Aaron Van
Klaveren sank his only three-point attempt of the game to turn a
41-40 deficit into a 43-41 Kingsmen lead. CLU would not look back
for the remainder of regulation.
Shooting was a tale of two halves for the Tigers, who opened up
shooting 50% from the field (14-for-28), but returned in the second
half to make just 17.9% of their shots (5-for-28). Sean
Anderson was the game high scorer with 15. Occidental
spread out the scoring tonight with eight different players
contributing to the offense. Anderson, Jordan
Washington and David Ostrow each had
three assists.
Each team grabbed 36 rebounds, but Oxy managed to pull down 10
offensive boards, four from Henry Meier, which led
to 13 points. Justin Goltz led the pack with eight
rebounds, while Shore added six as well. Clark Gordon recorded a
pair of blocks in just five minutes of action.
Cal Lutheran's Van Klaveren was all over the glass tonight
with 18 rebounds to go along with his 11 points. Two other Kingsmen
reached double figures with Andrew Meier tallying 13, although the
Tigers shut down the Kingsmen's leading scorer in the second half
(two points) and Aaron Fisher finishing with 11. Overall the
Kingsmen shot 42.1% from the field
One area of improvement worth noting was turnovers, which haunted
the Tigers during their final non-conference games. Oxy committed
just six turnovers, and forced eight by CLU.
The Kingsmen improve to 9-3, 1-0 in SCIAC play while the Tigers
fall to 4-8, 0-1. Occidental will be back in action on Thursday,
Jan. 15 at Pomona-Pitzer with tip-off slated for 7:30 p.m.
