By Ron Smith
December 29, 2016
 
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif) Cory Blau tallied 18 points and Sean Harman added 16 as #9 Westmont Men's Basketball (12-1) posted a hard-fought victory in the second game of the 41st Annual Tom Byron Classic hosted at Westmont. The Warriors defeated Fraser Valley of British Columbia (5-7) by a score of 84-70 in a game that featured several lengthy runs by both teams.
 
Harman simply did not miss a shot tonight, going six for six from the field - including three from long range. He also made his only free throw attempt. Blau made seven of ten field goal attempts including four of five beyond the arc.
 
Both teams came out of the gate firing on all cylinders, producing a score of 9-9 in just over four minutes of play. The Warriors continued their hot-handed shooting with a 20-2 run over the next seven and one-half minutes to take a 31-11 advantage.
 
Westmont took its largest first-half lead on back-to-back layups by freshman Gabe Shelmidine that gave the Warriors a 27-point margin (43-16) with just under five minutes remaining in the opening frame.
 
However, Fraser Valley put together a 16-6 run in the remainder of the first half to pull to within 17 (49-32) by halftime.
 
After play resumed, the Cascades continued to put pressure on the Warriors with a 17-7 run that made the score 56-49 with 15:16 remaining in regulation.
 
Back-to-back three-pointers by Harman turned the tide and by the time the second-half clock reached 8:23, Westmont was up by 25 points (76-51).
 
Once again, the Cascades began to whittle away at Westmont's advantage and nearly cut it in half when Riley Branch hit a three-point field goal to make the score 80-67 with 2:51 left to play. However, that 13-point deficit proved to be as close as Fraser Valley would get.
 
"I thought we lost our focus at times that Fraser Valley went on runs," said Westmont head coach John Moore. "I don't think Sean Harman loses his focus ever and I think he is a great model of what we want to be like. If I had to give a game ball I'd give it to him and Gabe Shelmidine. I thought they both played with great focus and great attention to detail - they were consistent.
 
"I thought we had a lot of inconsistent players out there tonight - that was disappointing. Part of it is coming off break and part of it is getting a big league early. But if we want to be a great team, we have to be more disciplined. The great indicator of being undisciplined is our shooting percentage. We went down 20 percentage points in the second half and 27 percentage points from the three-point line."
 
Defensively, Moore was pleased with the effort to keep the Cascades' top scorers from making an impact.
 
"Fraser Valley is big and talented," noted Moore. "We wanted to hold down Manny Dulay and Vijay Dhillon who were averaging nearly 27 points together. We held them to nearly half their average at14. The primary credit for that goes to Sean Harman and Hayden Anderson."
 
In the first game of the Tom Byron Classic, Cal Maritime (8-7) claimed a 72-52 victory over Occidental (5-2). Daniel Radford led the Keelhaulers with 25 points in the game one victory and also tacked on seven rebounds.
 
Tomorrow, the Byron continues with Occidental playing Fraser Valley at three o'clock and Westmont hosting Cal Maritime at 7:30.
 
"Cal Maritime is really tough," noted Moore. "Their record doesn't indicate it, but I think it is the best Cal Maritime team I have ever seen. They execute, they play hard, they play well together, they cross their "T"s and dot their "I"s. There are no run-on sentences when it comes to this team. They are really tough and they will be very difficult for us to contend with tomorrow."
 
Of course, a challenging opponent always makes for a great story and the Warriors will look to close the tale of the 41st Tom Byron Classic with the classic attributes of a good protagonist - unbending determination, discipline, focus and, of course, a victory.