SAN DIEGO-Two days after snagging their first conference win of the year, the Fresno Pacific Sunbirds (3-8 overall, 1-4 PacWest) ran into the buzzsaw of the PacWest leading Point Loma Sea Lions (10-3 overall, 6-0 PacWest), falling 84-54 Monday night at Golden Gymnasium.
"I thought we had a really quality defensive performance in the first half," Fresno Pacific head coach
C.J. Haydock said. "We were active, engaged, and rotating with good voices. We were really disrupted on offense and we let that affect our effort and consistency on the defensive side of the floor in the second half."
In the early going, Fresno Pacific held a slight lead before Point Loma began rolling behind the reigning PacWest Player of the Year, Kaden Anderson.
Darrin Person Jr. shot 50% from the field but the Sunbirds struggled to find consistency outside of their big man throughout the half.
Fresno Pacific was just 8 of 24 in the first half, collectively. Meanwhile, Point Loma mounted a 35-21 point lead in the first half by knocking down seven threes, maintain a slight edge on the glass, and forcing FPU into twice as many turnovers (9-FPU, 4-PLNU).
Anderson led Point Loma with half of its offense in the first half, scoring 17 points in the 20 minute segment.
Point Loma burst open the advantage with a 16-4 run to start the second half.
Things would get away from the Sunbirds as PLNU hit 8 more threes over the course of the first 13 minutes of the second half while stretching the difference to 30.
The game started to flow with Fresno Pacific's offense beginning to find consistency inside. The Sunbirds shot 50% in the second half on their first 22 shots.
Fresno Pacific held the slight edge with a better field goal percentage than Point Loma, but PLNU maintained the lead and closed the game with 18 made threes on the night.
Nate Kendricks and
Kyle Monk each finished with 10 points to pace Fresno Pacific.
"I thought our freshmen were bright spots today," Haydock said. "
Kyle Monk and
Isaac Peralta stayed aggressive to the rim and competed on defense."
Fresno Pacific hits the Christmas break for 10 days without a game before returning home to play Dominican on December 30
th in the Special Events Center.
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