Box Score

Fresno Pacific picked up its sixth straight win on Tuesday night, pulling away late to knock off PacWest foe Dominican (10-8, 6-4 PacWest) 97-88.

The Sunbirds (13-6, 8-3 PacWest) played most of the second half without two of their starters after Rickey Vick went down with an injury and Malcolm Griffin fouled out on a play that head coach Chris Wright called "the turning point of the game".

Dominican had come from behind to take a four-point lead with 9:24 to go before the Sunbirds went on a 12-1 run capped off by a Matt Samuels breakaway layup with 6:47 to play. After Samuels' layup, Griffin, who was on the bench cheering, was hit with a technical foul that brought plenty of confusion to the Sunbird bench.

Griffin had come out of the game after his fourth foul, but the technical gave him five, meaning the Sunbirds would have to go through crunch time without the reigning PacWest player of the week. Wright was upset with the call, but challenged his players to fight through the adversity.

"That really ignited us and ended up firing our guys up," said Wright. "It was a big turning point because we really had to come together. I thought our guys showed a lot of character tonight."

After the Penguins made both free throws following the technical, FPU scored five straight points and put together a 10-3 run that put the game out of reach.

The Sunbirds scored over 90 points for the fifth consecutive game, controlling the game's tempo from start to finish. The team did a good job of executing the gameplan, particularly in the second half. The Sunbirds also forced 21 turnovers in the victory.

"We didn't guard the way we wanted to in the first half and we were being out-rebounded at halftime," said Wright. "Dominican is 10-2 this year in games where they've out-rebounded their opponent so we really challenged the guys to get after it on the glass. We did a great job of controlling the pace as well."

Anthony Brant scored a season-high 14 points, all in the first half. John Taylor finished with a game-high 27 points while Samuels added 23. Antonio Credit finished with 17 points and eight rebounds. Griffin finished with eight points and a team-high 10 boards and six assists.

Dominique Taplin led the Penguins with 24 points. Devin Golston had 18 points and 12 rebounds.

FPU shot 53 percent on the night and out-rebounded the Penguins 36-35.

The Sunbirds are back in the Bay Area this Saturday as they take on 13th-place Holy Names at 4 pm in Oakland.