Box Score

TURLOCK — The Cal State Stanislaus men's basketball team continued to play tough defense as the Warriors cool-off the top offense in the conference in a shocking 73-58 victory over Humboldt State Saturday night.

Reggie Jones turned in his second consecutive career night in the scoring column, this time with 26 points, to lead the Warriors as they improved to 2-3 overall and 1-2 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association.

The win is Cal State Stanislaus' first over the Lumberjacks in nine tries since HSU joined the CCAA in 2006-07. It also snapped the program's nine-game losing streak to them during Stanislaus' CCAA era.

Humboldt State, which had averaged a CCAA-best 88.0 points per game entering the weekend, suffered its first setback of the year and is now 5-1 and 1-1 in the CCAA. With leader Brian Morris out of the offensive for most of the game, HSU was led by Brandon Sperling's 18 point effort. Randy Hunter chipped in 10.

"I think our we did a great job getting the ball to our number one option to start," Warriors head coach Larry Reynolds said. "Then the rest of the team played off it and took what the defense gave them and that made all of the difference."

Much like Friday night's contest, the Warriors' defense was strong, however, unlike the game against Sonoma State, the Warriors found ways to score and spread the offense Saturday.

Brett Sayad scored eight key points in the second half to finish with his career best 14 points. Dwight Jones was 1-for-8 from the field but made up for it with nine free throws for 11 points and dished a personal best seven assists in distributing the ball and running the offense. Dan Daviess also chipped in eight points.

Defensively, Stanislaus held its opponent to under 42 percent shooting for the fifth time this season, limiting the Lumberjacks' usually prolific offense to just 35.8 percent on 19 of 53 shooting for the night.

Similar to last year's match-up in Turlock between these two teams, HSU shot poorly in the first half (29.2 percent) again and trailed by 10 at the break. However, this time there was no major second half comeback despite a better second offensive half (41.4 percent).

"Defensively the guys did a great job following the game plan. We limited the quality of their shots," Reynolds added.

Last February, Humboldt shot just 13.8 percent and trailed by 20 before a second half rally that led to a 51-49 HSU win.

Reggie Jones was key early on offensively as well as defensively Saturday night. He scored the team's first 10 points while getting two foul calls on his man in green, HSU leader Brian Morris, three minutes into the game. Morris, who averaged nearly 18 points per clip, never recovered and finished with just six points and two rebounds.

"Reggie did a great job on him early and got him out of the game," Reynolds said. "(Morris) sat for most of the first half and it's tough trying to come out in the second half to get into the flow and fit back in. He's a great player and we were fortunate to do a great job on him."

The Warriors also took advantage of their free throw chances, converting on 29 of 37 chances to make the scoring diffrence. Reggie Jones was 11 of 14 from the charity strip to go with Dwight Jones' 9-for-10 total.

To beat HSU at its game, Stanislaus also nailed eight three-pointers with Sayad draining four triples.

Cal State Stanislaus will travel to Chico for another CCAA game on Wednesday before visiting Division I Pacific in Stockton next Saturday.