SAN MARCOS, Calif.—In a night where the Sonoma State men's basketball team struggled offensively, Jimmy Golden had a game-high 20 points, but it wouldn't be enough in Friday night's 65-55 loss to 19th-ranked San Francisco State in the semifinals of the 2017 CCAA Men's Basketball Tournament presented by Gearboss. 

The Seawolves fall to 20-8 on the year and will now have to wait until Sunday night's NCAA selection show at 7:30 PM to find out the fate of their postseason. On the other side, SF State improves to 25-4 on the year and will take on UC San Diego in the CCAA championship game on Saturday night at 7:35 PM.

Watch the postgame interview with head coach Pat Fuscaldo and senior Luke Cochran here.
 
Setting the pace was a critical factor in deciding the outcome of this game. Both teams play vastly different styles of basketball—SF State a more up-tempo, high scoring type of play, while SSU prides themselves on their defensive abilities, and rarely play in high scoring games. The conference foes were evenly matched early on and after the first seven minutes of play the score was 10-13 in favor of the Gators. However, SF State would go on to embark on 10-2 run and jumped to a 12-23 lead with 9:02 to go in the half.  The Gators would build their lead to as many as 12 in the half before Sonoma would end the half on a 9-0 run, five of those points coming from Golden.
 
SSU put themselves in a position to succeed only being down by three at the half against a tough SF State team and it looked like they were coming back from intermission with momentum on their side after Golden made a three-pointer to tie the game at 28. Unfortunately, this was not the case and in what felt like a game of runs, the Gators countered with a 15-3 run, recapturing the lead and increasing it to 31-43 five minutes into the second half. Sonoma never lost their focus despite trailing and went on an 8-0 run of their own and suddenly only trailed 39-43 with 12:28 to go in the contest. The Gators would increase the lead back to eight before Luke Cochran split a pair of free throws and Armani Nicolis made a dunk and a layup on back-to-back possessions to bring the Seawolves within three at 48-51 with 7:40 to go.
 
Over the next few minutes the deficit hovered around 4-6 for SSU and after trailing 54-48, Nicolis put his athleticism on display, making a layup while getting fouled and ultimately converting the free throw to narrow the score to 55-58 with 2:21 remaining. However, these would be the last points the Seawolves would score—resulting in their elimination from the CCAA tournament by a score of 55-65.
 
The Seawolves struggled to find a rhythm offensively Friday night, shooting only 32.8 percent from the floor on 19 of 58 overall and only 5 of their 27 three-pointers (18.5 percent). Golden and Nicolis were the only Seawolves in double figures with 20 and 11 points, respectively. Luke Cochran was the only other player with more than five points for Sonoma, chipping in nine points and 11 rebounds. SSU also struggled to take care of the ball, turning it over 18 times.
 
Defensively, the nation's number one ranked played well, holding SF State to 65 points, which is well below their season average of 79.1 ppg. Sonoma's defense also held the Gators to 20 of 52 shooting from the floor (38.5 percent), including 5 for 20 from three-point range (25 percent). All while forcing 11 turnovers in the process. One difference in the game was the free throw disparity—SF State went 20 for 31 from the line, while SSU went 12 for 15.
 
The Seawolves will find out the fate of their season on Sunday night during the NCAA selection show at 7:30 PM on NCAA.com.