Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
LOS ANGELES - The Whittier College men's
basketball team suffered its first loss of the New Year on Saturday
evening as Occidental College defeated the Poets, 71-57, in the
Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opener at
Rush Gymnasium.
The Poets (6-5, 0-1 SCIAC) trailed for all but two minutes of
the game and faced as large as an 18-point deficit with 8:40 left
in the game. Whittier climbed back into the gcontest with a
15-4 run over the next four minutes to close the gap to 56-49 but
that was as close as the purple and gold would come to taking over
the lead.
Occidental (9-3, 0-1 SCIAC) scored the next five points to put
the lead back into double digits and converted 7-of-8 foul shots
down the stretch to clinch the win.
Whittier was just 4-of-20 from three-point range for the game
and shot 35 percent from the floor. Drew Menez led
all scorers with 19 points while DaMon Perry
recorded a double-double with 18 points and 14 rebounds.
David Hayashi scored 10 points and AJ
Manalo added seven points and five assists in the loss.
Occidental held a 45-32 advantage in rebounds and scored 28
points to Whittier's 34 points in the paint.
Whittier scored the first bucket of the game at 18:30 but
was held scoreless over the next four minutes as the Tiger used a
16-0 run to build an early 14-point lead.
The Tigers led 31-21 at halftime.
The Poets return to action on Wednesday, January 13, as they
face Pomona-Pitzer on the road at 7:30 pm.
