By Zach DeMarcus
January 24, 2019

(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) Westmont Men's Basketball (11-6, 5-4 GSAC) improved to 8-0 on their home court this evening with an 86-74 victory over OUAZ (Ariz.) (3-15, 1-8 GSAC). Kyle Scalmanini and Olisa Nwachie again led the Warriors in scoring with 18 and 17 respectively.
 
Westmont head coach John Moore said, "We wanted this game to be broken down into four five-minute increments, the first five minutes and last five minutes of the first and second half. In each of those increments, we were significantly in the plus."
 
To open the game, Westmont jumped out to an 18-6 advantage through the first five minutes. OUAZ responded with a 9-0 run over the next minute and a half to bring the score to 18-15 with 13:41 remaining in the first half.
 
The Spirit would tie the game at 33-33 with 4:55 to go in the half, but the Warriors were able to win in their second increment as they outscored OUAZ by seven over the remaining five minutes of the half to bring the score to 46-39 at halftime.
 
The Warriors, again, struggled to take care of the basketball in the first half as they turned the ball over 12 times. They would improve in the second half and cut that number down to seven second-half turnovers. Moore noted, "We did a much better job in the second half. Yes, we were disappointed in how many turnovers we had in the first half, but we turned the page. We are trying to look at small victories. That was a small victory that we had in the second half – having fewer turnovers."
 
Cade Roth stepped in and gave the Warriors 26 solid minutes. He finished with nine points and eight rebounds. "He played really hard. I thought he was looking for his shot a good bit more than he has been. We talked yesterday about how important he's been this season. It was nice for him to get his confidence back and play the way he did tonight," commented Moore.
 
The Warriors came out strong to start the second half. Over the opening six and a half minutes, the Warriors went on a 15-3 run to extend their lead to 19 at 61-42.
 
Westmont was not able to put the Spirit away so easily as they fouled much too often throughout. Westmont sent OUAZ to the free throw line 31 times. The Spirit converted on 24 of those opportunities – just under a third of their total points came from the charity strike.
 
"We fouled entirely too much. In our starting lineup alone we had 16 fouls – that's too many. Some of them were not moving your feet kind of fouls. We need to improve on that," noted Moore.
 
Maxwell Hudgins added 12 points – all coming from his four-of-five performance behind the 3-point line. His biggest came with 5:08 remaining in the game and the Spirit within four points of the Warriors. Roth found an open Hudgins who promptly drained the three to put the Warriors back up by seven. "Max Hudgins' 3-point shot when they were within four was a very clutch shot." Said Moore.
 
The Warriors would hold on to win by a final score of 86-74.
 
In last Saturday's game against San Diego Christian, Nwachie became the 43rd player in Warrior history to reach 1,000 career points. This being the 79th season of Westmont basketball, Moore said, "That's an elite group. It's almost been 80 years that basketball has been played at Westmont, and just 43 players are in that elite group. We just had a couple of them in Cory Blau (1,622 points), Jerry Karcezewski (1,477 points), and Sean Harman (1,333 points).
 
"That is a very legendary group that those guys are a part of. Olisa certainly deserves to be in that group – especially the way he's played his junior and senior years. What matters most is how you finish and Olisa is certainly finishing really well.
 
"He's been so much better of late. He had the 29-point performance against San Diego Christian. Tonight I thought he was really good. Overall, he's grown into a leader. He has learned how to become a selfless player and he's a great teammate. Being our lone captain, he's been a really good leader for our program. He's grown into that role even throughout this season," commented Moore.
 
Westmont will now prepare to host the Firebirds of Arizona Christian. Tipoff is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. Westmont legend Tom Byron is being inducted into the Santa Barbara Court of Champions during a pregame ceremony.