Victory Gives Cal Lutheran Share of SCIAC Title

The chants of defense, defense, began with nine minutes to play in Thursday night’s Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference basketball game between Occidental and host Cal Lutheran, but the Kingsmen had received the message loud and clear about two minutes earlier.

The result was a 66-55 Cal Lutheran victory that gave the Kingsmen (20-5, 12-2 in conference play) a share of their second consecutive SCIAC title and set up a playoff game against co-champion La Verne.

The game, which will be played Saturday at Occidental, will determine the conference’s automatic entry into the NCAA Division III playoffs, which begin next week. The loser still might gain a berth in the 48-team tournament.

Trailing, 42-40, midway through the second half, Cal Lutheran forced Occidental turnovers on five of the next nine possessions to take a 49-42 lead with 7:42 to play.

Damon Ridley, a 6-foot-2 junior transfer from Sierra College, scored all of Cal Lutheran’s points during the 9-0 run, which was keyed by a pair of steals by Ridley and another by forward Rupert Sapwell.

“Defense is what motivates us in practice every day,” said Ridley, who scored 15 of his game-high 24 points in the second half. “Defense is what gets our transition game going off of turnovers.”

Occidental (15-9, 9-5) closed the deficit to 58-55 with 54 seconds to play on a pair of free throws by Blair Slattery (20 points, 13 rebounds), but Cal Lutheran’s Kelly Crosby scored the game’s final eight points.

“Sapwell, Ridley, Crosby, J.R. Woods and Derrick Clark . . . That group of guys really did the job for us tonight,” Cal Lutheran Coach Mike Dunlap said. “We were down, 42-40, and we shut them out for about the next four minutes. We just played some super defense.”

Free-throw shooting also played a major role for Cal Lutheran. The Kingsmen made 24 of 30 foul shots in the second half and 26 of 36 in the game. Occidental was 10 for 12.

Ridley was nine for 10 from the foul line in the second half, Crosby made seven of eight, and Sapwell made five of six.

The Kingsmen only made 32.8% of their field-goal attempts, but that figure was sizzling compared to their first-half performance, when they hit eight of 36 (22.2%). Despite their Arctic-like shooting, the Kingsmen trailed only 23-18 at intermission because Occidental made only 10 of 30 shots from the field.