ROHNERT PARK – Mike Baca, the long-time radio voice of Chico State sports on ESPN Radio, has seen a lot. He went to Catholic school, spent his fair share of years as a student at Chico State, and since then has even been rumored to attend a tattoo and piercing expo or two. But until Thursday night, he had never seen the Chico State men’s basketball team win at Sonoma State.
The 80-77 win was the Wildcats’ first in Rohnert Park since January 4, 1997, and snapped a 13-game road losing streak against the Seawolves. It was so exhilarating that Baca may come home with a new tattoo memorializing the moment.
Freshman Sean Park scored a team-high 19 points, leading all five Chico State starters in double figures. Damario Sims chipped in 14 points, Terence Pellum and Roderick Hawkins scored 12 apiece, and Jay Flores added 11 points, six assists and three steals. Reserves Rashad Parker, Zach Graves and Jason Conrad also made key contributions with many of the game’s starters battling foul trouble throughout the night.
The Wildcats improved to 11-8 overall and 7-8 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA). Sonoma State, which got a game-high 24 points from senior guard Ben Washington and knocked down 30-of-34 free throws as a team, fell to 7-12 overall and 5-10 in the CCAA.
The Wildcats, who have struggled early in many of their recent losses, came out thirsty Thursday, scoring the game’s first 10 points. But the Seawolves scored 15 of the next to take the lead. They went up by as many as seven and went to the half leading 42-40.
Chico State stayed close throughout the early part of the second half, tied it at 54-apiece with 12 minutes to play on Hawkins’ short hook inside, and then took the lead for good when Hawkins hit consecutive free throws with 10:49 left. The lead grew as large as seven on three different occasions – Park’s three-point play with 5:59 remaining, Hawkins’ free throws with 5:18 left, and Park’s jumper at the 3:57 mark.
Their next four possessions resulted in two missed free throws, two turnovers and a missed shot, however, and when Will Olsem’s long 3-pointer with 1:12 left found the net, the Seawolves were only down 74-72.
That led Baca to exclaim: “If you’re going to break 14 years of history, it’s not going to be easy.”
The Wildcats continued to stumble a bit missing four more free throws, bringing their total to six in the game’s final 2:39. But Park weaved his way inside for a score with 42 seconds left, stretching the Wildcats’ lead to four, and then hit two free throws with 27 seconds left to again made it a two-possession game.
That proved vital when Patrick Scott banged home a 3-pointer to make it a one-point game with 12 seconds left. Sims was sent to the line with 10 seconds to play and missed both free throws. Hawkins grabbed the offensive board, was fouled, and preceded to miss two more free throws.
Suddenly, the Wildcats were one bucket away from another bitter loss at Sonoma State. But Pellum poked the ball off the Seawolves Steven Pratt and out of bounds to seal the Wildcats’ victory.
While Baca’s head was still spinning, it was Wildcats Head Coach Greg Clink who put the headphones on backward for the postgame show. He got them turned around in time to admit that the last three weeks, in which the Wildcats dropped five of six games, had taken their toll on the team’s morale.
So the Wildcats made the decision to control what they could and committed to simply playing harder than their opponents.
“We needed to get back to having fun,” he said. “We haven’t been having a lot of fun these last three weeks.”
The pressure that Thursday’s win took off the Wildcats will help them continue to have fun as they travel to face 14th-ranked Humboldt State in Arcata Saturday night (which they haven’t beaten on the road since February of 1998) and move through the rest of the regular season.
The Wildcats are now alone in seventh place in the CCAA standings with a one-game lead on eighth-place Cal State Stanislaus and two-game cushion over the three teams tied for ninth. The top eight teams at the end of the regular season advance to the CCAA Championship Tournament. After Saturday’s game at Humboldt State, the Wildcats will travel to face Cal State East Bay and UC San Diego the following weekend before returning home to host Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State San Bernardino in their final regular season home games. They wrap up the schedule at Cal State Monterey Bay and San Francisco State.
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