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Los Angeles, CA — Occidental's men's basketball team was in action at home for a matchup with Husson University of the North Atlantic Conference. 

Oxy would jump out to an early lead, making all of their first 5 shots of the game. Husson would refuse to give in and continued to play hard on defense to keep the game close. The Eagles would eventually take a one point lead after a made layup with 12:42 remaining in the 1st half. 

Husson would get their lead up to 5 after a made 3-point attempt but Oxy would counter quickly as Anthonty Hollerich drew a foul and sank both free throws. On the next possession, Sydney Shipp would drive aggressively to the hoop and put back his own miss to cut the lead down to 1. 

The Eagles were drawing a lot of contact to get to the free throw line, shooting 12 of 14 from the stripe in the 1st half. Oxy would end the half strong by scoring the last two field goals of the hald coming off of a Ryan Hakl made jump shot and a Kyle Dosa made layup, closing the half with a score of 33-32 in favor of the Eagles. 

The game would remain close for the entire second half of the game, with both teams not creating a comfortable lead. With under 12 minutes to go left in the game, Jacob Hamermesh and Kyle Dosa got to the line on back to back possessions and made both of their free throws to give the Tigers the lead. 

Husson quickly responded but Hamermesh drained his next two jump shots to give the Tigers a 55-51 advantage with 8:03 left to play. Husson would score twice to even the score at 55 before Dosa got back in on the action and drained a huge 3-pointer to give the lead back to Oxy. 

After the Eagles got to the free throw line and gained a one-point lead, Hamermesh once again took on the challenge of scoring for the Tigers and drove to the basket, made the shot and got fouled. He would miss the free throw but Oxy had a 60-59 advantage with a minute and seventeen seconds left in the game. 

After an Oxy turnover, the ball would be in Husson's hands for the last possession of the game, with the Tigers still up by one point. Oxy would turn up the defense and force a tough contested jump shot for the game winner that hit the front of the rim and bounced off before time expired 2 seconds later. 

Oxy picked up a huge 60-59 win and will look to take that momentum into 2023, with their next game coming on Wednesday, January 4th as they travel to take on Cal Lutheran.