CHICO – Late February is always an important time for the sport of men's basketball. For that is when teams' resumés are being looked at as the NCAA Division II Regional is approaching. Chico State bolstered its portfolio Thursday after taking an 66-56 win over first-place Cal State Dominguez Hills at Acker Gym.
Both Chico State (19-6, 14-6 CCAA) and Dominguez Hills (21-5, 16-4 CCAA) are under consideration according to the first NCAA regional poll released this week. The committee puts the 10 teams in each region in alphabetical order and will start ranking them next week.
The Wildcats winning keeps them in a tie for third with Cal State LA, which was nearly upset by Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata tonight thanks to a game-winning layup with one second left. Chico State also did itself, LA and Cal State San Bernardino a favor by preventing Dominguez Hills from clinching at least a share of the CCAA Championship.
With two games remaining, Dominguez Hills still holds on to first place and for Chico State, it is now only two games behind the leaders. San Bernardino sits in between and is now one game behind Dominguez Hills.
The Wildcats and Golden Eagles will meet Saturday to determine who gets sole possession of third place. Prior to the 7:30 p.m. tipoff, Chico State will be saluting Joshua Hamilton and Kelvin Wright Jr. on Senior Day.
It was a tight battle all night long. Dominguez Hills got on a short momentum to take a 47-40 lead with 14:45 left in the game. When Wildcats head coach Greg Clink called a timeout to stop the 7-0 bleeding, it shifted the momentum to Chico State. The Wildcats went on to outscore the Toros 26-9 the remainder of the game with seven different scorers. Chico State went 7-for-18 and capitalized on the free throw line by going 10-for-15 while Dominguez Hills went a cold 1-for-13 from the field and committed seven crucial turnovers.
Adam Afifi scored 13 points while Wright Jr. had 11 to go along with his 10-rebound night, four of which came from the offensive end. Evan Oliver came up clutch by scoring a dozen points off the bench.
The Wildcats ended the night hitting 40.7 percent (22-for-54) of their shots while making 17-of-31 free throws.
The Toros, meanwhile, shot 33.3 percent (18-for-54) from the field while going 15-for-23 on the line. CCAA Player of the Year candidate Jeremy Dent-Smith carried the team with a monstrous 23-point night as the rest of the team were under 10 points.
