Keelhaulers Capture Conference Championship

Cal Maritime men clinch top spot in California Pacific Conference

The Cal Maritime men's basketball team clinched first place in the California Pacific Conference on Thursday when Anthony Simi hit a shot in the lane with two seconds remaining to give the Keelhaulers a 74-72 win.

The Keelhaulers (23-5, 10-1) travel to play William Jessup on Saturday in the last regular season conference game. William Jessup is currently 9-2 in the conference. A win by the Keelhaulers will secure an outright championship. However, regardless of the result Cal Maritime will have the No. 1 seed when it plays in the league tournament at Menlo College on March 1 due to the fact that the Keelhaulers have already beaten William Jessup and swept Simpson while William Jessup split with the Redhawks. Cal Maritime will play Menlo in the first round.

"This was a gutty, gritty win on the road against a very good Simpson team. As we told our guys, in order to win a championship we would have to continue to battle no matter the circumstances. After Simpson tied it with that three point play, we could have easily felt sorry for ourselves. Fortunately, our guys cared about each other too much to allow that to happen," explained an excited head coach Bryan Rooney.

Against Simpson, Cal Maritime was led by Erik Hanson, who had 21 points and was 8-10 from the field.

Casey Healy had 13 points and 10 rebounds while Grant Blaser finished with 13 points.

Jaquai Wiley had seven points and three assists, while Simi finished with 12 points.