Poets' early drought leads to loss at Occidental

Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

LOS ANGELES - The Whittier College men's basketball team suffered its first loss of the New Year on Saturday evening as Occidental College defeated the Poets, 71-57, in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opener at Rush Gymnasium.

The Poets (6-5, 0-1 SCIAC) trailed for all but two minutes of the game and faced as large as an 18-point deficit with 8:40 left in the game. Whittier climbed back into the gcontest with a 15-4 run over the next four minutes to close the gap to 56-49 but that was as close as the purple and gold would come to taking over the lead.

Occidental (9-3, 0-1 SCIAC) scored the next five points to put the lead back into double digits and converted 7-of-8 foul shots down the stretch to clinch the win.

Whittier was just 4-of-20 from three-point range for the game and shot 35 percent from the floor. Drew Menez led all scorers with 19 points while DaMon Perry recorded a double-double with 18 points and 14 rebounds.

David Hayashi scored 10 points and AJ Manalo added seven points and five assists in the loss.

Occidental held a 45-32 advantage in rebounds and scored 28 points to Whittier's 34 points in the paint.

Whittier scored the first bucket of the game at 18:30 but was held scoreless over the next four minutes as the Tiger used a 16-0 run to build an early 14-point lead.

The Tigers led 31-21 at halftime.

The Poets return to action on Wednesday, January 13, as they face Pomona-Pitzer on the road at 7:30 pm.