Keelhaulers finish Arizona trip with win at ERAU

Men's Basketball defeated the Embry-Riddle Eagles 64-52 in Prescott, Ariz. and improved to 16-5 overall and 4-3 in Cal Pac Conference play.

The Keelhaulers got another huge game from junior forward Zavier Lucero who recorded his 11th double-double of the season with 16 points and 16 rebounds.

Lucero, a 6-foot-6 junior from Rodriguez High also hit four three pointers. Josh Hauser had 15 points on 5 of 12 shooting while hitting four threes and Evan Madill had 10 points on 3 of 7 shooting from downtown. Matthew Essien had the second highest rebounding total on the night for the Keelhaulers with five boards.

Cal Maritime moved into a three-way tie for second place with Simpson and UC Merced. The Keelhaulers have the better overall record, but the Redhawks and Bobcats have won the head-to-head matchup between them so far this season. However, Cal Maritime will get a chance to host both of the teams this February to even the series in their own building.

The Keelhaulers got their largest lead of the first half on back-to-back threes from Madill with 8:15 to go as the Wallace, Calf. native had nine points in the first half. Maritime's lead was trimmed to two with a minute to go in the half, but a nice put back for Elijah Holts and then a floater in the lane at the buzzer for the now healthy Holts and the Keelhaulers led 31-27 at the break.

Junior Trey Porter put the Keelhaulers up by eight with under 13 minutes to go in the game but the Eagles would hang around, trimming the lead to four for Cal Maritime with less than eight minutes left to play. Divine Nwoko had a three pointer from the corner waived off after a foul was called away from the ball and the Eagles scored on the other end to make it a two-possession game.

Nwoko would miss a three on the next possession, but Lucero poked the ball free from a dribbling Eagles player and it was scooped up by Madill who passed it ahead to Lucero for a two-handed slam that seemed to finally grab the momentum for good for the Keelhaulers with 6:51 remaining. Lucero would put Cal Maritime up by 10 with five and half minutes to go and Embry-Riddle would never get the Keelhaulers advantage below seven points from that point.

The big different on the night was the turnovers and points off turnovers as the Keelhaulers committed four less turnovers and had an 18-6 advantage in the points scored off of those takeaways.

Cal Maritime shot 37.3 percent from the field but hit nine threes, and did well enough defensively to keep Embry-Riddle (7-10, 3-4) from getting good looks from three-point range as the Eagles were only 2 of 14 from deep on the night.

Cal Maritime is back in action at home next Saturday when it hosts Simpson College of Redding, Calf. and looks to even the season series with the Redhawks at 7:30 p.m. at the PEAC at Cal Maritime.