Keelhaulers complete 2-0 SoCal trip
The Keelhaulers defeated West Coast Baptist 100-69 on Saturday and Westcliff University 79-68 on Monday to improve to 8-1 on the season.
A banged-up Cal Maritime Men's Basketball Team was merely missing its leading scorer, starting center, and small forward as they began a Southern California road trip but still had enough to return north with two more wins.
Junior Zavier Lucero, and seniors Ben Borja and Elijah Holts were out for the two-game trip, but they still had senior guard Josh Hauser, and a slew of eager teammates ready to step in and fill the void.
On Saturday junior Trey Porter started at center for Borja scoring 16 points on 8 of 10 shooting and forced the Eagles to sag in on him defensively as he proved too much for one West Coast Baptist defender to handle.
That would leave Cal Maritime shooters open on the perimeter as Kaden Young went 6 for 6 from downtown on his way to 22 points and Hauser scored 19 while shooting 8 of 16 from the floor.
The Keelhaulers bench didn't just preserve the lead, they extended it. Senior Evan Madill went 4 for 8 from three-point range to finish with 12 points and sophomore Matt Essien was 2 for 2 from beyond the arc while scoring 10 points. Senior Chris Brooks & freshman Isaiah Sugiura had strong drives to the basket in that stretch for the reserves as well.
With six minutes left the starters came back in for a couple minutes to give a group of reserves who had been in for a while a breather to help close it out. Young set up Hauser for a basket and then the Simi Valley native hit a three before a Hauser lay up as the starters delivered one last time and the bench returned to finish the game.
On Monday Night the Keelhaulers played a budding program on the rise in the Westcliff Warriors at Orange Coast College in what was a close contest until the last two minutes.
Early on Essien scored on a drive to the basket and got the foul after a great feed from Hauser to break an 8-8 tie. Maritime trailed by one with 8:13 to go in the half, but Madill hit a three to reclaim the Maritime lead, and though the game would be tied on two more occasions, the Keelhaulers would never trail again.
Another Madill three gave Maritime their largest lead of the first half at 28-21 with 7:04 to go in it, but one of those ties would be the halftime score with the teams even at 36 apiece as the Warriors balanced attack used second-chance opportunities to close the gap.
A 6-0 run for Maritime started the second half after three points the old-fashioned way for freshman Divine Nwoko and Young hit a three from the corner to get the Keelhaulers off to a hot start after the break.
But a couple turnovers with a one-and-done possession in between and the Warriors were able to tie the game up one more time. Junior Cetrick Yeanay gave the Keelhaulers the lead for good with a three pointer to make it 45-42 with 14:45 remaining.
Cal Maritime's lead never extended past three points for a six-minute stretch with Westcliff cutting it to one on four occasions. An Essien three pointer was followed by a Porter jumper just beyond the free-throw from Essien to put the Keelhaulers up 57-49 with 7:39 to go to finally get a little breathing room.
Westcliff however refused to give in, and that's when Hauser began slashing to the basket with and without the ball which led to layups or free throws for the senior guard. While the freshman Nwoko gave Cal Maritime its first double-digit lead at 68-58 after the Eastvale, Calif. native scored a bucket, grabbed three consecutive boards and then hit a three.
The defense finally got stops consecutively and that was what allowed the Keelhaulers to go on run and extend the lead. The most important ingredient over the years to cooking up a Keelhaulers win arrived just in time to send Men's Basketball off to Thanksgiving break with a double-digit victory.
Hauser finished with 23 points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals going a perfect 12 for 12 from the free throw line. Essien scored 12 points going 4 of 7 from the field and Madill added 11 points, going 2 for 3 from downtown. Junior Cetrick Yeanay had 10 points and a team-leading eight rebounds
Cal Maritime shot lights out vs. West Coast Baptist at 55.1% from the field, 46.7% on threes, and 83.3% from the line while winning the turnover and rebound battles by 10 and eight respectively.
Against Westcliff they had just one more rebound and three less turnovers than the Warriors while shooting just 40% from the field and 28% from three-point range, but still shot 85% from the charity stripe.
UP NEXT: Men's Basketball will return to action on Dec. 3 at UC Santa Cruz for a 7 p.m. game against the Banana Slugs.