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Los Angeles, CA — Oxy's men's basketball team traveled to Thousand Oaks to take on the California Lutheran Kingsmen on Wednesday night. 

This was the first of two matchups between the two teams for this SCIAC season. The Tigers would come out hot to start, making 4 of their first 7 shots to take an early 8-4 lead over the Kingsmen.

Cal Lutheran was able to keep it close by getting open shots and knocking them down while exchanging made baskets with Oxy. With 9:24 to go in the first half, Jacob Hamermesh would draw contact and head to the line where he would make them both to give Oxy a14-12 lead at the time. 

From that point in the half, there would be 7 lead changes between before the half came to a close. Cal Lutheran was able to create some separation by going on a quick 6-0 scoring run before Kyle Dosa would make a layup to stop the bleeding and cut the lead down to 3. 

Going into halftime the Kingsmen were leading 33-27 after Sydney Shipp made a jump shot with only 3 seconds left on the board. Shipp would take the momentum into the second half by making the Tigers' first two shots of the second half as well.

After a closely contested first 10 minutes of the second half, Shipp would drain another 3-pointer that gave Oxy the lead with 9:54 remaining in the game. Cal Lutheran would respond quickly with a made layup to even the score back up at 43-43. 

From this point in the game there would be 5 lead changes between the two teams as they were trading baskets. Anthony Hollerich hit a huge 3-pointer with 5 minutes remaining that put the Tigers up by two points. He would then draw contact on the next Oxy possession and make both free throws to extend the lead to 4.

The Kingsmen responded with a made layup and a 3-pointer of their own to take the lead back, and despite Oxy making clutch shots to stay in the game Cal Lutheran would hold onto the lead for the rest of the game. The final score of the game would be 67-60. 

Hollerich and Shipp led the team with 20 and 12 points respectively. Hollerich also added 6 rebounds to his stat line and Shipp had 5 assists in the game. Oxy will look to play another good game and even the season series when Cal Lutheran comes to Rush Gymnasium on February 1st for the teams' next matchup. 

Next Game: The Tigers will be back in action on Saturday, January 7th (5:00pm) at West Coast Baptist for a non-conference matchup.