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La Verne attacks Bulldogs, 95-68

Senior Kenny Cauley, the SCIAC's third leading scorer, lays in two of his points against Occidental, and helps La Verne win the game, 84-68. The men's basketball team is now 7-3 in conference and 11-10 overall. Wednesday night the Leopards beat Cal Lutheran, 74-65. / photo by Ian Gratz
Senior Kenny Cauley, the SCIAC’s third leading scorer, lays in two of his points against Occidental, and helps La Verne win the game, 84-68. The men’s basketball team is now 7-3 in conference and 11-10 overall. Wednesday night the Leopards beat Cal Lutheran, 74-65. / photo by Ian Gratz

by Damien Alarcon
Sports Editor

All expectations of ending in a close scoring game were blown away as the men’s basketball team destroyed the Redlands Bulldogs, 95-68, before a crowd of 675 on Saturday night in the Supertents.

The win brought vengeance for the Leopards (11-10, 7-3 conference) who suffered a Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) defeat by the Bulldogs earlier this season. Redlands (11-10, 5-5) won that contest, 88-80.

“In our first meeting, we didn’t come prepared to play mentally,” said assistant coach Nick Hartman. “When we come out and compete like we did tonight, there is no one who is better than us. Talent wise, no one can touch us.”

“Tonight we played as a team and with a lot of intensity,” said sophomore forward Kevin Gustafson, who finished the night with 17 points. “We focused on (Jon) Allen, since he rolled up 30 points the first time we played them.”

Allen, the sophomore forward for Redlands, scored nine this time.

“I just don’t think we came to play, plain and simple. We didn’t play any defense, and it just didn’t feel that were here,” Allen said.

The night’s leading scorer was La Verne’s Kenny Cauley. The senior guard hit five three-pointers in his 19 points. Guard Chad Duggins and forward Eric Noyes, both seniors, added 12 points while senior point guard Ruben Castellanos had 10.

Redlands had only one player with double-digits in junior center Page Boudreau with 17.

The Leopards had a commanding nine-point lead at the end of the first half, ending a seemingly equally talented matchup. La Verne dominated on both offense and defense in the second half outscoring the Bulldogs, 51-31.

“Earlier this year, guys were forcing up bad shots, but now we’re moving the ball well enough that good shots are opening up,” said head coach Dan Mulville. “Also, we’ve worked hard on our rebounding which keeps us in games even when shots aren’t falling.”

Cal Lutheran also fell under the Leopards attack as they lost, 74-65, at Cal Lu. Gustafson led La Verne with 17 total points.

With the defeat of Pomona-Pitzer given by Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, 65-57, Wednesday night at Claremont, a conference championship is definitely within reach for the Leopards. Both CMS and Pomona are tied for first, each one a game ahead of La Verne.

If La Verne wins the remaining three games of the regular season, they will own at least a share of the title.

The next matchup will be in Pasadena tomorrow night at 7:30 as the Leopards travel to Caltech. The Caltech squad should prepare La Verne for a showdown with CMS (Feb. 22) and Pomona (Feb. 25) to conclude the regular season.

Damien Alarcon
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