LA VERNE — Jake Copithorne (Newton Centre, MA) hit a layup just before time expired in overtime and the Occidental College men's basketball team escaped the University of La Verne with a thrilling 69-67 victory.

The Tigers (6-6, 1-0 SCIAC) had a three-point lead with 13 seconds left in regulation when La Verne's Trevor Woodland hit a 3-pointer to send the game into overtime. Then, after Oxy took another three-point lead on a Kris Montoya (Portland, OR) layup and Nick Robinson (Palo Alto) free throw, Woodland erased it again, nailing a 3-pointer with 12 seconds left in OT.

Without calling a timeout, Oxy's Jeff Irwin went 90 feet, found himself stuck in the air, then bailed himself out by finding Copithorne cutting to the basket who finished a reverse layup with 2 seconds on the clock.

"Senior to senior. Highlight film stuff," Occidental coach Brian Newhall said with a grin. "Good timing too."

Copithorne was relieved more than anything to end the game on the positive note, admitting he was the guy that let Woodland out of his sights for both game-tying baskets.

"I let the guy hit the two threes to let the game go to overtime so I needed to get that one," said Copithorne, who finished the game with seven points, six rebounds and two assists. "And thank God I did. It was great."

Playing in his second game after missing the first 10 with an Achilles injury, Montoya led Oxy with 18 points and seven rebounds.

The 6-foot-6 sophomore forward converted a three-point play to bring Oxy within two, then hit a 3-pointer with 5:36 left to give the Tigers their first lead of the entire game.

"It just felt good to help my team out," Montoya said. "We needed this victory, it's been a tough season for us so I just wanted to do anything I could to help our team win."

Not much had gone right for Oxy throughout the game until the finish, but a resilient Tigers team just made play after play when they needed to.

On top of the pair of momentum swinging 3-pointers, Tigers leading scorer Deshun McCoy (Los Angeles) and leading rebounder Conrad Liebowitz (Santa Monica) fouled out of the game on consecutive plays with just over 2 minutes left in regulation.

Other guys stepped up.

Irwin played solid down the stretch and Robinson handled the ball for the bulk of the minutes toward in the end of the game with starting point guard Sam Stapleton nursing a thumb injury.

With Jack Hanley, Montoya and Copithorne being denied on the inbounds on the last play of the game, Irwin found Copithorne for the win.

"We kept hanging in. Guys just kept playing. That was our goal," Newhall said. "Losing Liebowitz and McCoy was tough but our guys stepped up."

Copithorne, a senior captain, said the vibe among the team has a different feel than it did in 2011. A more mature and focused one.

"It just speaks a lot to how we've been working really hard the last couple of weeks," Copithorne said. "I think we're a more mentally tough and mature team than we were last year or even earlier this year."

Oxy shifted to a zone in the second half to deal with La Verne post player Austin Naplitano, who finished with 20 points, and to keep the Leopards guards out of the paint.

"We went to the zone because which I thought was the difference," Newhall said. "We couldn't guard Napolitano inside, we were struggling off the bounce, the zone helped us and our guys did a great job of matching up with the overload."

Hanley finished with 16 points for Oxy and McCoy had 14. Woodland led La Verne and the game with 23.

Oxy looks to ride the momentum from Saturday's road win into Wednesday, its SCIAC home opener against Caltech at 7:30 p.m. at Rush Gymnasium.