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LOS ANGELES — The Occidental men's basketball team upped its SCIAC winning streak to four games, beating Whittier 71-66 at Rush Gym on Saturday.
The Tigers played really well in the first 10 minutes of the game, then collapsed to fall behind 39-33 by half and finally turned the momentum around in the second half with an outstanding defensive effort for 18 minutes.
Oxy gave up just 27 points in the second half and only 14 points until there was less than 2 minutes to go in the game. Whittier came into the contest as to the SCIAC's highest-scoring team at better than 80 points per game.
The Poets played the foul game and made a few late baskets, including two 3-pointers, to cut into Oxy's lead.
Jacob Adler led Oxy with 21 points on 8 of 17 shooting, Caleb Yellin-Flaherty added 13 points, 10 rebounds, six assists and three steals, Ryan Kaneshiro had eight points and eight rebounds and Kyle Dosa had eight points and four rebounds.
The Tigers got a big boost from Anthony Hollerich off the bench in the second half. The first year from Dallas, Texas scored nine points and grabbed four rebounds during a 17-4 run that put Oxy up by eight points around the 8-minute mark.
Oxy was able to increase its lead to as high as 14 near the end of the game.
Sydney Shipp, first year Oxy guard who was named the SCIAC Defensive Player of the Week, didn't shoot as well as he has been, but passed well, finishing with seven assists, along with nine points on 3 for 11 shooting.
Nick Potthoff led the Poets with 21 points, Jude Agabasi added 17 and Nolan Black had eight points and nine rebounds.
Season Impact: The Tigers improve to 12-3 overall and 4-2 in SCIAC.
Whittier falls to 9-7 and 4-3. The Poets were coming off their biggest win of the season at No. 24 Pomona-Pitzer on Wednesday night.
Next Game: Oxy is back in action at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Wednesday at 7 p.m. CMS swept the season series between the teams in 2018-19, but Oxy won at CMS in the SCIAC Postseason Semifinal to advance to the SCIAC Championship game.
