Box Score CARSON — In a tale of two completely different halves, the Cal State Stanislaus men's basketball team fell on the short end as the Warriors lost at Cal State Dominguez Hills, 78-71, Friday night.
With a win, the Warriors would have been in a three-way tie for sixth. Instead they fell to 13-10 overall and 9-10 in the CCAA -- just two games in front of East Bay with three games remaining. The CSUEB Pioneers upset Cal State San Bernardino in Hayward Friday.
With the other seven spots in the tournament already taken (but the seedings are still a mystery), the Warriors and the Pionners will battle for the last invitation. A Warrior win at Cal State L.A. and a UC San Diego win over CSUEB on Saturday would give the golden ticket to Stanislaus.
In Friday night's game at Cal State Dominguez Hills (12-9, 11-8 CCAA), the Warriors could do little wrong in the opening half as they jumped out on top early and rolled to a 19-point lead in the final seconds prior to halftime. Stanislaus took a commanding 37-21 lead into the locker room at intermission.
However, things changed very quickly in favor of the home team Toros in the second half. Using a 7-1 run with five points by Robert Willhite to cut the lead down to 10, the Toros all caught on fire. Dominguez Hills ran off with a 25-8 run to erase the CSUS lead. It was Willhite's layup at 12:35 that allowed the Toros to take over the game for the first time.
Stanislaus hung close until 51-51 when eight unanswered points surged the Toros ahead.
Brett Sayad gave the Warriors some hope with a three-pointer at 4:14 left to bring the Warriors back by two, but CSUDH took off again, this time using a 7-0 run to put the game away. The teams exchanged free throws in the final minutes for the final outcome.
Reggie Jones finished with 22 points to lead the Warriors. He also had six rebounds.
Ronnie Sawyer and
Frank Monge each added 11 points.
Cal State Dominguez Hills out-scored the Warriors 57-34 in the second half and won the rebounding battle 41-28 for the game.
Willhite finished with 22 points and eight rebounds and Wayne Andrews chipped in 20 to lead the Toros.
