SAN MARCOS, CALIF. - On Sunday, December 31st, the Sonoma State men's basketball team resumed conference action against Cal State San Marcos. The Cougars came out swinging with five three pointers to jump out to an eight point lead. The Seawolves would outscore San Marcos 14-6 in the paint but nine made three's to SSU's three would prove the biggest difference in the half.
San Marcos would lead by as many as eleven in the half, but Sonoma State's
Andrew Henderson would get going late, scoring five points in the final two minutes of the half to cut the lead to single digits. Henderson would finish with eight points to lead SSU. The Cougars would conclude the half with 14 made field goals and shooting an efficient 45% from beyond the arc. SSU's defense did force 8 turnovers in the half to keep them in the game but needed to heat up from three to keep pace with San Marcos.
The Cougars would go on a 13-6 scoring run to start the second half and increase their lead to 16. A pair of three pointers would ignite the run and head coach
Rich Shayewitz would call back-to-back timeouts to try and settle his team down and generate some stops.
Andrew Henderson continued to be the Seawolves lifeline as he went on to finish with 20 points to lead all scorers. Slowly but surely, the Seawolves would continue to chip away and force some costly turnovers to keep themselves in the game. Nearing the ten minute mark, SSU would finally connect on a pair of three balls from
James Nobles and
Pierce Rexford, cutting the lead to ten.
Once again though, San Marcos would knock down a pair of three balls of their own and jump their lead back to 16. The Cougars would continue to answer and maintain their double digit lead up until the final seconds. Sonoma State would get the lead down to nine with 34 seconds left on a free throw from
Julian Bryant but there just simply was not enough time to mount the comeback.
The Cougars concluded a stellar shooting night with 16 made three pointers compared to SSU's 7. The Seawolves would generate 16 turnovers, 8 each half, continuing to be one of the better turnover generating teams in the conference, but San Marcos took advantage of the spacing with the zone defense to get good looks from beyond the arc and build an early lead.
Julian Bryant would come on nicely in the second half, getting to the free throw line and finishing with ten points as the only other scorer in double digits for the Seawolves.
Matt Williams III and
Dillon Iyawe would combine for 16 points on the night, with Iyawe grabbing a team high 7 rebounds.
Sonoma State falls to 6-5 overall and 2-3 in conference play. The Seawolves will stay on the road and take on Cal State Monterey Bay on Thursday, January 4th at 7:30 PM. Tickets can be bought online at sonomaseawolves.com and you can stream the game LIVE on the CCAA Network.
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