Box Score
Fresno Pacific was clicking on all cylinders Monday night, scoring a season-high 109 points while cruising to a 109-88 victory over visiting Hawaii Hilo (3-11, 1-5 PacWest).
Matt Samuels led the team in scoring for the second straight game, finishing with 25 points and seven assists as the Sunbirds (9-6, 4-3 PacWest) shot 56 percent from the floor and improved to 7-0 at home on the season.
John Taylor added 24 points and
Malcolm Griffin had 21 points and seven assists.
Antonio Credit finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds, and
Trevon Clayton pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds.
"You always want to protect home court," said Griffin afterward. "We just tried to take it to them tonight and come out aggressive. Just pushing the ball in transition, not being selfish, making plays. We've been working on a new offense and it's really of clicking for us. We're very hard to stop right now."
The Sunbirds jumped ahead early, scoring 15 points in the first four and a half minutes. Samuels ignited things for the team for the second straight night with a breakaway dunk, and the Sunbirds were off to the races. At halftime FPU had put up 59 points on the board and shot 57 percent, taking a 59-46 lead into the locker room.
The second half was more of the same, with the Vulcans really having no answer for the tempo and intensity that FPU brought on the offensive end.
"Our guys did a great job of getting the ball down the court quickly and getting into our offense early," said head coach Chris Wright. "Really we just moved the ball well. We've been working on sharing the ball more and being more unselfish. We're going to have to defend a little better than we did tonight moving forward but I'm very pleased with the win."
CJ Brown had 18 points and eight assists to lead the Vulcans. Michael Melonas added 17 points, but was ejected with 13:47 left in the game following two technical fouls.
The Sunbirds were 31 points off the all-time school record for points scored in a game, set in 2004 when the team scored 140 against NCAA Division III Redlands. It was the program's highest scoring output since Chris Wright took over the head coaching duties in 2010.
The Sunbirds host Chaminade on Saturday at 4:30 pm. Chaminade comes in with a 4-2 conference record. The Silverswords upset NCAA Division I Texas by 15 earlier this season and boast one of the league's top players in DeAndre Haskins.
