ROHNERT PARK, CALIF. - On Thursday December 2nd, the Sonoma State men's basketball team hosted the Otters of Cal State Monterey Bay in their conference opener looking for their first win of the 2021-22 season. With a nicely packed Wolves' Den on a Thursday night, the Seawolves looked to snap their 6-game losing streak and open up conference play with a win against the Otters. Head coach
Rich Shayewitz and his group were coming off of two tough losses the weekend prior to Holy Names and Fresno Pacific. Despite the results, the Seawolves had a lot of positive takeaways as they held the Sunbirds to just 60 points and took the Hawks deep into the second half in an intense match up there. The team would look to take their defensive improvements into tonight's contest against the 1-2 Otters.
The Seawolves made their defensive imprint on the game right after the tip as they came out and forced turnovers on the Otters first two offensive possessions. A jumper from freshman
Jaylen Wells and a layup from senior
Wesley Gilbert would give the Seawolves an early 4-0 lead as the crowd in the Wolves' Den made its presence known early in the game. Minutes later, back-to-back three's from veterans
Kenny Olsem and
Nick Klarman would give SSU a two-score lead. Klarman would add another three just under the 11-minute mark to give the Seawolves their biggest lead of the night at 19-10. The lead would be short lived however, as Monterey Bay went on an immediate 11-2 run to tie the game up at 21 a piece. The Otters would catch fire from deep and knock down another pair of three's to take a 27-21 lead.
After Seawolf big's
Wesley Gilbert and
Jeremy Lillis added back-to-back layups inside, Shayewitz and his squad would bring it back to a two point game nearing halftime. Once again though the Otters made the Seawolves pay from downtown as they would connect on another two three pointers just before the half to make it a nine point game. Despite the scoring run and hot shooting from three, SSU had good moments of pressure and tough defense and just needed a spark offensively to get back into the game.
A defining moment of the Otters out of the halftime, a 10-0 scoring run would flip the game on it's head and silence the Seawolf crowd as Monterey's lead grew to 17. The shooting woes would continue for SSU in the second half as they shot a staggering 1-12 from three point range in the half and only recorded 6 made field goals. The Seawolves did dominate the paint however, outscoring the Otters 22-12 on the night and as a result went 12-19 from the stripe to also double Monterey's free throw conversions. Monterey Bay did have a couple huge scorers off the bench as they totaled 50 points off the bench compared to Sonoma State's 25.
The game would finish 75-50 in favor of the Otters. Forward
Nick Klarman would lead SSU with 12 points on 5-10 shooting. After struggling from downtown earlier in the second half, Klarman put the ball on the deck and got to the rim on multiple occasions to get easy buckets. Freshman
Jaylen Wells got another start for the Seawolves and finished with 7 points and a team high 8 rebounds. A pleasant bright spot for Shayewitz and his group moving forward came from senior guard
Jake Salinero. After battling ankle injuries earlier in the season, Salinero saw his first action of the year in tonight's game. He would come off the bench and put up 21 minutes, 9 points on 2-4 shooting and he would also go 4-4 from the line to lead the team.
The Seawolves return to action this Saturday in the Wolves' Den as they take on bay area rival SF State on Saturday at 3:00 PM. Live stat and stream links can be found at sonomaseawolves.com and all games can be streamed on the CCAA Network. Tickets can be bought online as well at sonomaseawolves.com/tickets.
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