Toros Survive at UC San Diego in 58-57 Win

LA JOLLA -- Cal State Dominguez Hills went scoreless over the final 3:36 of regulation and withstood a pair of UC San Diego attempts gone awry at the wire as the Toros held off the host Tritons 58-57 tonight at RIMAC. DeShaun Freeman paced CSUDH with 14 points.

With the win, the Toros improve to 5-4, 2-1 CCAA, while the Tritons fall to 1-5, 0-3 CCAA.

One night after going cold in the second half against CS San Bernardino in yesterday's blowout loss, lightning struck again towards the end of regulation as the Tritons clawed back after surrendering all of its 36-29 halftime lead.

This time, however, UCSD missed consecutive attempts as regulation wound down to give the Toros the thrilling victory.

After CSUDH scored the first bucket of the game, it was all UCSD in the first half as the Tritons held as much as a 9-point lead before settling for a 7-point edge entering the break.

UCSD continued its momentum early in the second half after a pair of James McCann foul shouts pushed the lead to 11 at 40-29, but the Toros scored 6-straight points to cut the lead to 5, eventually taking the lead at 12:34 on a pair of Myron Green free throws.

The Tritons, however, kept the game close until an Alex Strauther jumper gave CSUDH its biggest lead of the game at 56-51 with just under 5 minutes left, with a Givon Crump basket at the 3:36 mark accounting for the final scoring of the night for the Toros.

UCSD cut its deficit by two on a pair of free throws by Tyler McGrath, and then by two more on a Justin Brue lay-up with 56 ticks left in the game. But after earning a defensive board on an ensuing Toro miss, McCann had his attempt blocked by Ramon Williams with two seconds left, and a last-second attempt by Drew Dyer after Dyer collected the offensive board went for naught, securing the Toro win.

The Toros shot 45.7% from the field while holding UCSD to just 36.4%, but the Tritons sank all 10 of their free throws while CSUDH misfired on four of their 17 attempts.

Three Tritons scored in double figures, but were out-reboundded 34 to 28 in the loss.

CSUDH will have two weeks off before continuing CCAA play at cross-town rival Cal State L.A. on December 15.

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