Biola basketball showed no mercy to San Diego Christian during last weekend’s away game. However, this week, the Warriors of Westmont stunned the home crowd with a final score of 75-70, stopping the Eagles’ three game winning streak.
NAIA’s No. 4 Eagles experience a devastating blow in their standings. They are now 23-3 overall and 13-3 in GSAC. This takes them out of first place and puts No. 3 Concordia as the only No. 1 team in the conference.
The Warriors pick up their fourth-straight victory and improve to 10-6 overall and 18-7 in GSAC. Biola’s game against Westmont was a back and forth effort by both teams.
The beginning of the first half saw Westmont trail by seven points, but freshman guard, Preston Branson, changed all that. His seven points pushed his team to a 9-2 run which tied up the game at 16-16. Biola did not give in but battled right back. Nonetheless, the Warriors gained slight momentum at the end of the half as junior forward Dan Rasp netted a 3-pointer putting the score at 33-29.
In the final half, the Eagles saw the lead go up 42-34. Collectively, they managed a 6-0 run and were only down by two points. This was matched and soon Biola would trail by 10 points. Although the game was slipping through their hands, seniors Danny Campbell and Marlon King took the initiative to get their team back in the game.
This was not enough as the Eagles could not stop the impressive shooting from Westmont. The Warriors were 14 of 20 at the foul line, and fouls played a huge role in this upset.
Biola’s game against the Hawks of San Diego Christian had a different outcome. The Eagles took advantage of the poor inside coverage from the Hawks. Campbell scored 18 points and King scored 16 points. Notably, junior center Andrew Schroeder scored a perfect 16 going 4 of 4 from the field and 7 of 7 from the free throw line.
Hawks only had one thing going and that was their sophomore guard Jason Starr. Only three of his points were from inside the three point line and 18 points of 21 points were from behind the arc. Similarly, the Hawks had 12 three-pointers and only 6 two-pointers at the end of the game.
The Hawks had pulled earlier upsets on Fresno Pacific and Concordia, but this time the Eagles made sure they closed the gap by a score of 78-53.
Biola will finish up their last four conference games in the next three weeks. This weekend they will go to work in their first road game against Concordia.
