By Jacob Norling
December 7, 2024
 
(ROCKLIN, Calif.) Westmont Men's Basketball (3-6, 1-1 PacWest) came oh so close to the story of Saturday's game being their resilient second half effort. Instead, a last-second conversion from Jessup (4-3, 1-0) gave the opposition its first PacWest win in program history by a score of 63-62.
 
"It was a tough one tonight," acknowledged Westmont head coach Landon Boucher. "We played really well for several minutes at a time, but then at other times we were just making way too many mental mistakes. I wouldn't even say we had too many turnovers (10), but it was more of an inability to stay within our offense, or stay with what had been working.
 
"When we did stick with it this week, I thought we were tough to guard. When we're more unpredictable, we can be really tough to guard. Tonight, I just felt like we kind've got away from that, especially when fatigue kicked in."
 
The first half featured the same story as many of Westmont's games this season, where the club struggled to find scoring from anyone other than Adrian McIntyre. At intermission, McIntyre had 16 points on six of 11 shooting. Still, Westmont went into the locker room trailing 33-25 in large part because the rest of the squad made just four of 18 attempts from the field.
 
For Westmont, it took nearly 12 minutes for the club to get their second field goal from anyone not named McIntyre. At that point, Jarrett Bryant was the only other player with a basket as Westmont looked up at a 17-11 deficit. By halftime, all eight players who appeared for Jessup had scored at least two points, while six of Westmont's 10 players were held scoreless. Making matters worse was Westmont's inability to score from beyond the arc, where they made just three of 13 at halftime after making 12 of 17 in total back in Fresno.
 
In the second half, the rest of the club got going beginning with Drew Ramirez, who made a shot from long range. Minutes later, with 15:22 remaining, another three ball from Ramirez pulled Westmont within three. Then, with 12:55 left, it was Bryant's turn to connect from beyond the arc, with his triple drawing the two sides even at 44.
 
From there, the two sides traded far more stops than makes, with Westmont's next big shot coming from Mason Romano with 8:22 on the clock. At that point Romano knotted the game at 51, and it would be the last basket for either team until Romano hit another three-pointer nearly three minutes later. After Romano's triple, a pair of free throws from McIntyre put Westmont up 56-51, giving them their biggest lead of the night with five minutes remaining.
 
However, after multiple whistles blew in their favor, Jessup enjoyed a 6-0 run over the next two minutes of play, putting the home team up 57-56 as the game entered its final stretch. The game remained close in its final seconds, when a huge put-back layup from Romano flipped the game on its ear, putting Westmont up 62-61 with 6.7 seconds remaining. All Westmont needed was one stop to secure a perfect road trip, but Jessup's Cayden McDaniel made that dream short-lived.
 
After a timeout, McDaniel sprinted from midcourt towards his teammate who had to inbound the ball under their own basket. McDaniel's move tempted an initial Westmont defender to run alongside him, allowing McDaniel a lane to sprint by the Westmont player who was parallel to him once he gained possession. A second potential defender met McDaniel just before he reached the top of the key, but the Westmont player would not risk a potential foul, allowing the Jessup shooter to take another huge step towards the basket.
 
A similar occurrence happened at the free throw line, where McDaniel eventually took his shot. Westmont's third potential defender hesitated without aggressively closing the gap between them, allowing McDaniel to take an uncontested floater for the lead.
 
A potential happy drive home turned into a bittersweet bus ride when McDaniel's floater found the bottom of the rim, putting Jessup by a score of 63-62 with 1.2 seconds remaining. A desperation heave at the buzzer would not come close, and the Westmont Warriors left Rocklin with a 1-1 record in PacWest play.
 
"I was really proud of our fight tonight," assured Boucher. "We were down three with 1:15 to play, and we ended up taking the lead. We just needed one stop, but he ended up getting downhill and it was a tough look for us. It's tough to lose that way, but this is the PacWest."
 
At night's end, McIntyre led Westmont with 28 points to go along with six rebounds and four assists. However, he would be the only member of the club to finish with double-digits. Elsewhere, Bryant pulled down 16 rebounds to go along with seven points, while De'Undrae Perteete had nine points to pair with four rebounds.
 
"I was really proud of JB's 16 rebounds," noticed Boucher. "He had ten by half, and he was working really hard to get up and get after it all night long. Looking forward, we've got a big week ahead of us with finals and then with APU at home. We just have to keep getting better. I do see us getting better as the weeks go on, but yeah, tonight was just a tough one."
 
The Warriors return to action on December 14 at 7:30 p.m., when they welcome the Azusa Pacific Cougars into Murchison Gym.