It came down to the last seconds of the game when the CLU basketball team Kingsmen were narrowly edged out by the Pomona Pitzer Sagehens, 60-58. The game went back and forth with the two teams battling to keep narrow leads throughout both halves.

The Kingsmen and the Sagehens were all tied up throughout most of the first half until Pomona went on a short scoring streak to take the lead to seven by the end of the first half. Pomona didn’t let up to start off the second half either and gave themselves the biggest lead all night with 12 points.

“The first half of the game was a lot of offense and little defense,” said senior captain Jayvaughn Nettles. “Whoever made the most stops at the end of the half was going to have the lead heading into the locker room.”

When the Kingsmen trailed by 12 points, Corey Quintana led a second-half comeback and scored all of his 15 points. Down by 12, the Kingsmen came roaring back to put themselves within two with just under 10 minutes left in the game.

Jeremy Sulker-Hall had a big game for the Kingsmen that included a double-double with 10 boards and 12 points. Sulker-Hall and junior Michael Palmer were the only two Kingsmen who stayed in the game for at least 30 minutes.

Nettles, Quintana and Sulker-Hall were the three big impact players in the closing few minutes of the game. Nettles found Quintana for a quick two points, followed up by another pair by Nettles himself to bring the two teams within a point of each other.

“We got the stops that we had to absolutely get,” said Nettles. “We rebounded better [in the second half], had a solid group in the game that went on an important run and stepped up our individual defense, which led to great plays on the offensive end.”

After a few great defensive stops, the Kingsmen had a few chances with the ball to try and edge out the Sagehens, but couldn’t connect with their last two shots. The Sagehens were up three points when they fouled Nettles after recovering a loose ball with only one second left to play. This put the Kingsmen in a very difficult position to win the game. Nettles made the first shot and missed the second on purpose, hoping to have a tip in off his miss to tie the game. Unfortunately for the Kingsmen, the Sagehens came down with the rebound.

“Our team is playing better together now compared to earlier in the season due to more time with each other and just playing more games,” said Nettles. “We still have some work to do and some kinks to work out, but I’m very optimistic about our chances of being top four in our conference. We all are under the impression that we can compete with anyone.”

The Kingsmen (3-4, 1-1 SCIAC) with a new found confidence, take on Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (4-4, 3-0 SCIAC) tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the Gilbert Arena.

Nicholas Ballou
Staff Writer
Published Dec. 12, 2012