Box Score CLAREMONT, CA. – The No. 24 Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens earned their fourth-straight SCIAC Regular Season Title with a 75-68 win over No. 19 CMS on Tuesday night at Voelkel Gymnasium.
Season Impact: with the win, the Sagehens clinch the SCIAC Regular Season Title and earned their fifth 20-win season in program history to improve to 20-5 overall and 15-1 in SCIAC play.
The Sagehens were led by Brendan Mora and Joe Cookson who both went for 20-point games against their conference rival. Mora notched a double-double with 20 points and 14 rebounds while Cookson scored a team-high 21 points. Ty Bergman fell one rebound shy of a double-double with 14 points and nine boards while Pete Boyle chipped in with eight.
Both teams floated around the 38% mark from the floor while CMS shot at a slightly higher clip from three at 35.3% to the Sagehens' 31%. The Sagehens outrebounded the Stags 45-37 with the Sagehens putting up 34 points in the paint.
Like most Sixth Street Rivalry games, low scoring to start after the game went scoreless for the first two minutes of the game. The two teams alternated leads early in the first half after Boyle converted an and-one to make it 8-6 to the first media timeout at 15:49. Straight out of the media timeout an and-one by CMS flipped the lead to the Stags at 9-8 as the two teams went back and forth throughout the first half. The Sagehens made a small run to end the first half after Bergman, Mora, and Peyton Mullarkey hit shots to make it 38-32 heading into halftime.
Pomona-Pitzer came out of halftime and opened up a huge run with three-pointer after three-pointer falling for the Sagehens. Bergman, Boyle, and Cookson hit consecutive three's to extend the lead to 52-35 at the first media timeout of the second half. After facing their largest deficit of the night, CMS started to chip away at the lead and got it under 10 by the second media timeout with a 61-54 lead for the Sagehens with just under nine minutes to play.
The Stags crawled all the way back and got the game to a one-possession game at 65-63 with 4:15 to play, but the Sagehen defense stepped up and held the lead while Cookson and Mora continued to score to keep the Sagehens on top. CMS Was able to force a turnover late to give them a slight chance at a comeback but couldn't find a big shot to fall late and were forced to foul.
The Sagehens led by 71-68 as junior Hayden Moser walked to the free-throw line with a crucial one-and-one on the line. Moser went on to bury both free throws to extend the lead to 73-68 and the Sagehens continued to stay solid from the stripe and earned their fourth-straight SCIAC Regular Season Title
Up Next: The Sagehens will host the SCIAC Semifinals as they face the No. 4 seeded Cal Lutheran Kingsmen on Friday, February 24th at 7:00 p.m.
