SAN DIEGO – The top two teams in the Pacific West Conference standings clashed Saturday at Golden Gymnasium.
The Chaminade University men's basketball team, who entered the afternoon in second place of the standings, had a chance to make up ground to conference-leading and nationally ranked Point Loma. However, the Silverswords could not quite get enough down the stretch in their 97-84 defeat.
Chaminade trailed by as many as 11 points midway through the second half, cut the deficit to just one before the Sea Lions, who are No. 21 in the D2 College Sports Communicators (D2CSC) Media Poll, pieced together several successful possessions to pull away.
Roland Banks II (Bakersfield, Calif./Fullerton College/Cathedral HS) had a season-high 24 points while
Amound Anderson (Los Angeles, Calif./Fullerton College/Leuzinger HS) popped five 3-pointers and 23 points for the 'Swords who lost their second straight game on their current road trip.
Chaminade, who have dropped the last seven meetings to Point Loma, fell to 12-5 overall and 6-5 in the PacWest, pushing them down four spots to sixth after Academy of Art (5-3 PacWest), Vanguard (5-4) and Hawai'i Hilo (4-3) all won their games on Saturday. Biola (6-4), which now occupies the No. 2 spot, was idle. Due to the imbalanced schedule, Saturday was the only regular season meeting between the two teams.
Kent King (Washington, D.C./Vincennes University/Fork Union Military Academy) added 18 points while
Jackson Last (Hurricane, Utah/Robert Morris University/Hurricane HS) had 10. King and Last also had five rebounds each with
Kameron Ng (Kaneohe, O'ahu, Hawai'i/Univ. of Hawai'i Hilo/Saint Francis HS) dropping five assists.
Zack Paulsen had 23 points for the three-time defending PacWest regular season champions who improved to 16-4 and, at 9-1 in the conference, own a three-game lead over Biola.
To no one's surprise, both teams hoisted up their share of triples. Chaminade, which leads the conference in 3-point attempts with 534 entering the game, took 30 from long distance while Point Loma, second with 473, fired up 25.
Neither team was able to gain more than a five-point lead in the first 15 minutes of the game before Point Loma was able to own a 47-37 edge with four minutes left in the half. Anderson and Banks hit free throws followed by a three-point play from Last to close the deficit to 49-46 but a Paulsen triple gave the home team a 52-46 lead at the half.
The Sea Lions threatened to make it a lopsided finish, opening up a 74-63 lead with 9:47 left but Anderson and Banks accounted for eight Chaminade points to close the gap. A King fast break jam finished a 10-0 'Swords run which brought them to within 74-73 with 7:35 left but the Sea Lions responded on a 14-4 run over the next five minutes to help pull away down the stretch.
The 'Swords shot 46.8 percent from the floor while making 10 treys and were 16-of-18 at the foul line. They committed just 10 turnovers, forced 14 on the Sea Lions end but were out-rebounded, 39-to-24.
Point Loma was 53.3 percent from the field with 12 made triples and were 21-of-24 at the free throw line.
The Silverswords' road trip continues Monday at Concordia University Irvine. Tipoff is scheduled for 5 p.m. Hawai'i time.
