Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

LA VERNE, Calif. – The Whittier College Men's Basketball team saw their four game winning streak snapped Saturday afternoon as a buzzer-beater would propel the Leopards of the University of La Verne to the 91-89 victory.

Whittier (11-8, 7-4 SCIAC) earned a huge turnover in the final seconds from Hakim Arnold that gave them a look at the game-tying basket with twelve seconds left.  Eric Jennings (Fontana, Calif.) would then take it to the hole and lay it up for two but on the other end Khaneal Mason would come down coast to coast with the game-winning lay-up with 2.3 seconds left on the clock that halted the Leopards four-game losing skid.

With the loss the Poets and Leopards are now tied for second place in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Standings.

La Verne took an early 13-7 lead following a 9-2 run but the Poets answered soon after adding 10 unanswered with back to back triples from Louis Kurihara (Pacific Palisades, Calif.) and Anthony Martinez (Cerritos, Calif.), a jumper from Andrew Torres (Whittier, Calif.), and a lay-up from Mike Jones-Mensah (Ghana, Africa) that moved the score to 17-13 in favor of the Purple & Gold. 

The game would become tied on three more occasions in the first half before Whittier's 8-4 run with a three-pointer from Martinez, jumper from Jones-Mensah and another tre from Kurihara that once again gave WC a lead 39-35.

Jennings would add another two lay-ups with under two minutes to play to give the Poets a 43-38 lead and Torres added one himself that again stretched it to five but in the final 1:08 the Leos would go on a 6-0 run to close out the half, capped off with a three-pointer from Victor Costa as time expired.

The second half started off in La Verne's favor as they held a lead for the first twelve minutes.  Chris Kapano (Los Alamitos, Calif.) and Jose Gonzalez (Bell Gardens, Calif.) would add back to back lay-ups that tied things up at 68-68 at the 8:27 mark and Kapano would knock down two free throws soon after that pulled the game even at 70-70. 

Whittier finally took their first lead in the second half off a Jennings jumper and two free throws from Jones-Mensah with 6:17 to play and Jones-Mensah would duplicate that five minutes later that gave WC a two point advantage.

Jacob Contreras (Pleasanton, Calif.) would knock down a three-pointer that put Whittier back in front with 2:36 to play at 86-84 but it would soon be short-lived as La Verne would add five straight to go back in front 89-86. 

After Jennings added the game-tying lay-up, Mason drove up the front court, hesitated for a second on the right wing and blew past his defender to lay-in the game-winner.

Jennings led the Poets with 16 points and five boards.  Jones-Mensah had 15 points off the bench.  Martinez had 14 points, five rebounds, three assists, and two steals, Torres had 13 points and Contreras had 12 going 4-of-5 from long range.    

Whittier has a big week coming up beginning tonight with a home game against UC Santa Cruz beginning at 5:00pm.  They then take on Chapman University on Wednesday, February 10 on Dave Jacobs Court beginning at 7:30pm before hosting Caltech on Saturday, February 13 beginning at 2:00pm during the Poets Centennial Celebration.