Gators Lead Wire-to-Wire in 79-68 Win Over Toros

Box Score

CARSON -- Senior center Moriba DeFreitas led the Toros with 14 points, but visiting San Francisco State shot 54.2% from the floor and nailed 12-of-26 from 3-point land as the Gators led wire-to-wire in taking a 79-68 win over Cal State Dominguez Hills tonight in the Torodome.

With the loss, the Toros fall to 5-8, 2-4 CCAA, while the Gators improve to 6-3, 4-2 CCAA.

San Francisco started strong to the tune of a 10-5 early lead, led by Max Fodor's 6 points. An ensuing 9-5 Gator run prompted a Toro time out at the 11:55 mark of the first half, but a Toro miss and SFSU lay-up pushed the visitor led to 21-10.

Hot shooting from the floor (50.0%) and the 3-point line (60.0%), combined with 9 Toro turnovers, kept the Gator lead at double figures as SFSU entered the locker room up 38-28.

A missed CSUDH attempt and made SFSU triple and lay-up stretched the Gator lead to 43-28 to begin the second half, until a 3-pointer by Jason Payne looked to quell the visitor's momentum.

SFSU, however, used an old-fashioned 3-point play split the next 26 points, with a Brandon Tatum triple and Erick Fearn bucket pushing the Gator lead to 63-44 with 11:45 left in regulation.

The Toros would get no closer over the next 10 minutes until a late flurry that included triples by Everett Turner and Steffon Neal whittled the lead to just 12 at 77-65 with 28 ticks left, with another Turner 3-pointer as time expired accounting for the final 79-68 tally.

SFSU's Nefi Perdomo led all scorers with 24 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the floor, with Brandon Tatum following with 18 points. Poor free throw shooting by the Gators kept the Toros in the contest, but 23 Toro turnovers negated that would-be edge in the loss.

Turner and Pierson Williams each chipped in with 12 points with Moriba tallying a game-high 7 rebounds.

The Toros will take to the road next weekend, starting with a Friday night contest at Chico State.

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