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Los Angeles, CA — The Occidental men's basketball team was looking to keep their momentum going from a win over Chapman on Wednesday when they took on the La Verne Leopards at home on Saturday. 

The game was close from the jump as La Verne took a 6-2 lead but Oxy quickly responded and took a 7-6 lead after an Aiden Williams 3-pointer and got the lead to 9-6 after a Jacob Koretz made layup.

The game was close for much of the 1st half but eventually Oxy went on a small run to create a 7 point lead with 5 minutes before halftime. The run included a layup from Nicky Clotfelter and back to back layups from Andrew Waldman to make the score 30-23 Tigers. 

Oxy put together a 9-0 run to close the half that included layups from Micah Breaux and Aiden Williams, a jumper from Jacob Koretz and was capped off by a 3-pointer from Andrew Waldman. The Tigers would take a 41-29 lead into the halftime break. 

Koretz got Oxy going out of the break by knocking down a 3-pointer on the first possession. With 5 minutes gone by in the half, La Verne had the lead down to 7 points but Oxy came right back with a 6-0 run, with all 6 points coming from Micah Breaux to get the lead back up to 13 points. 

The lead got up to 18 points after Nicky Clotfelter came up with a steal and threw down a dunk on the ensuing fastbreak. The Leopards would struggle to rally their way back into the game and Oxy would go on to win by a score of 78-67 to secure their 6th SCIAC win of the season and move into sole possession of 4th place in the SCIAC. 

Andrew Waldman led the way in this one with a 17 point and 11 rebound double double. Jacob Koretz and Micah Breaux scored 16 points each and Breaux also had 8 rebounds. Aiden Williams had 13 points, 3 assists and 2 steals. Nicky Clotfelter scored 10 points to give all 5 Oxy starters double figure scoring efforts in this game. Clotfelter also had an impressive 6 steals. 

The Tigers will take on the CMS Stags on the road in their next matchup on Wednesday, January 31st at 7pm in Claremont, CA.