TACOMA, Wash. – The UC Santa Cruz men's basketball team improved to 9-7 on the year following an 82-70 victory over the Puget Sound Loggers on Sunday night.
Joseph Espy led the team with 25 points and 12 rebounds while
Andrew Ferrara-Jones scored 18 points.
Zino Okah and
Ian McCloskey also scored double digits with Okah chiming in for 13 while McCloskey scored 10. The Slugs will be back in action on January 5th at 2:00 p.m. when they take on the University of St. Thomas at Colorado College.
How It Happened
The Loggers jumped out to an early 4-0 lead before extending the lead to 8-4 moments later. UC Santa Cruz quickly responded, using a 9-5 run led by four points from
Joseph Espy to tie the game at 11-11. From there, the Slugs took over, outscoring Puget Sound 16-5 for nearly six minutes to build a 27-16 lead. The run was led by Andrew Ferrara Jones who dropped seven points to highlight the attack. Puget Sound tried to stop the UCSC momentum, but the Slugs maintained control, pacing the final eight and a half minutes of first half action by outscoring the Loggers 20-14 to take a 47-30 lead into halftime.
Out of the halftime break, the Loggers struck first but UCSC outscored Puget Sound 8-7 in the opening five minutes of the second half, giving the Slugs a 55-37 lead before a media timeout with
Joseph Espy,
Ian McCloskey, and
Zino Okah contributing to the run. Puget Sound managed to score three straight points with a free throw followed by a layup but a McCloskey three brought the run to an end to put UCSC up 58-40 with 13 minutes on the clock. The Loggers tried to close the gap, using a 14-8 run to pull within 12 points at 66-54. Puget Sound's efforts continued as they scored six unanswered points to make it 66-60 with 5:43 remaining in the second half. UCSC finally responded with a layup from Espy and later a made free throw from Zino Okay to go up 69-62 with just over four minutes left in the game. Despite the late push from the Loggers, UCSC was able to outscore Puget Sound 13-8 down the stretch and seal the 82-70 victory for their second-straight Washington road win.
