Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

ORANGE, Calif. – The Whittier College men's basketball team opened up Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) play Saturday afternoon but wound up falling to Chapman University 95-76 in the Hutton Sports Center.

Despite having four players in double figures, Whittier (4-5, 0-1 SCIAC) was unable to stop the 57.4% shooting effort by the Panthers, which included a 61.1% clip from behind the arc.

Chapman (6-2, 1-0 SCIAC) was able to go 11-of-18 from deep and was able to out-shoot the Poets by almost 20%. 

Whittier did however start off hot going in front 18-12 in the first quarter sparked by back-to-back three pointers from Eric Jennings (Fontana, Calif.) and Louis Kurihara (Pacific Palisades, Calif.) capped off with a triple from Ben Maynard (Pasadena, Calif.) and two free throws from Anthony Martinez (Cerritos, Calif.).

But the Panthers would rally over the next five minutes outscoring the Purple & Gold 12-0 giving them a 24-18 lead before extending it to 31-22 as they continued on a 19-4 run taking a 47-42 lead into intermission.

Whittier's Mike Jones-Mensah (Ghana, Africa) added the first points for the Poets in the second half with free throws and Chris Kapano (Los Alamitos, Calif.) followed with a jumper on the end line to pull WC within one at 47-46 but another run of 12 unanswered for CU led by Luke Hamlin who knocked down a pair of triples in the first two minutes would push the lead back to double digits. 

Michael Alvarez (Long Beach, Calif.) then got into the mix soon after bringing Whittier within ten adding a three pointer, lay-up and free throw during the 9-2 run but that's as close as the Poets would get as Chapman would build their lead back to 19 with 1:18 left, which was a deficit to much to overcome.

Jennings and Martinez led the Poets on offense each adding 13 points.  Kapano had 10 along with Kurihara and Maynard and Jones-Mensah combined for 11 rebounds to go with eight and nine points, respectively. 

Whittier returns to the court this Wednesday, January 6 when they host the University of La Verne beginning at 7:00pm.