Poor Shooting Sinks Owl Effort Against Bakersfield

Glendora, CA — The Citrus College Men's Basketball team had a good opportunity to run their win streak to seven, and prove that their early season setbacks were behind them on Wednesday night when they hosted State #20 and SoCal #10 Bakersfield College. Instead the Owls had one of their worst shooting nights in over a month, and fell in a close one 68-61.

Bakersfield drew first blood, scoring four of the first five points of the evening. The Owls settled in though and briefly regained the lead after back to back baskets by freshman Tyler LaCour, the first a baby hook inside the lane, and the other a deep three. Bakersfield would crawl back in it and the two teams traded the lead back and forth three times before the Renegades snatched it back for good. Bakersfield built up a lead as large as 11 points, before settling in for a seven point 33-26 lead at the break.

 In the second half, Citrus began to work their way back into the game, getting the Renegade lead down to under three four times in the first seven minutes. Sophomore Edgardo Campos even tied the game up at 45 all, after hitting a big three just to the right of the top of the key. Bakersfield always had an answer though. Six minutes later, sophomore Justin Childress would tie the game back up with a jumper that made it 53-53. Two possessions later, sophomore Dominique Walker gave the Owls their first lead since early in the first half, with a lay-in that made it 55-53 with 6:16 left on the clock.

The lead was short lived, as Bakersfield went on a 8-0 run to go back on top by six. Citrus had one final push left in them, getting their deficit back down to two twice in the final mine and a half, but Bakersfield surged back ahead each time, including hitting a blind three pointer heave with 10 seconds left on the clock as their shot clock was expiring to go up by five.

In the loss, Citrus shot just 38.5% from the floor including a 27.6% shooting effort in the first half. Labour led all Owl scorers with 12 points off the bench, while Childress and sophomore John Roach each added 11.

The road does not get any easier for Citrus as they physically hit the road this weekend. The Owls will take on State #7 and SoCal #4 Antelope Valley College (15-4, 3-0) at 5:00 PM this Saturday.