AZUSA, Calif.-A strong early start was curtailed by a deep, hot-shooting host as the Fresno Pacific Sunbirds (4-10 overall, 2-6 PacWest) fell 80-52 to the Azusa Pacific Cougars (11-3 overall, 6-1 PacWest) Thursday night inside the Felix Event Center.

Fresno Pacific led in the early going and stifled Azusa's strong outside shooting for the most part, but the Cougars used a massive run to close the first half and relied on an extremely balanced scoring attack to put away the Sunbirds.

"I thought we played a really comprehensive first half except for one run," Fresno Pacific head coach C.J. Haydock said. "That's a team that punishes you for mistakes and I thought we just got a little sloppy turning the ball over in a couple of stretches which let APU find a rhythm in the second half."

Kyle Monk sparked the offense for Sunbirds, scoring two of the first four field goals, to build an 8-0 lead.

Darrin Person Jr. added the other two field goals before Azusa cut the lead to 3 before the media timeout.

The Sunbirds maintained the lead by pounding the rock inside, scoring ten of their first 14 points in the paint to maintain the three-point lead for another four minutes.

Azusa grabbed its first lead of the game after FPU had pushed the lead to 18-14, but a three and a dunk and another three placed the Sunbirds down four.

The Sunbirds held APU to just 2-8 from deep to start the game, but APU hit on four consecutive attempts to make it 28-20 with 5:14 remaining in the first half.

Azusa piled on with what turned into a big run before Person Jr. made a layup to halt the slide, with the Sunbirds trailing 35-23.

Fresno Pacific managed to prevent any one player from breaking out in the first half but five different players hit multiple field goals and six different shooters combining to knock down 7 of 15 threes in the first twenty minutes.

Azusa's advantage hovered around double-digits for the start of the second half, widening the difference to a game-high 15 points with just under 12 minutes.

The Sunbirds' three-point defense tightened up in the second half, despite APU's run the Cougars were just 1-7 from deep over a thirteen minute stretch.

Fresno Pacific could not connect of their own three point attempt as the deficit continued to grow beyond 20 points.

Overall, Azusa Pacific's depth proved too influential as five different players registered double-digit points while the team committed just 3 total turnovers.

Fresno Pacific shot 40% from the field but finished just 1 of 12 from deep.

Person Jr. and Kendricks each finished with 12 points for Fresno Pacific, tying the game high equaled by two Cougars.

"Darrin and Nate were really good from the jump," Haydock said of his seniors. "They were really aggressive in flexing the rim offensively."

"We are pretty banged up with four games in eight days while these Southern California schools wait for us. So we will try to get healthy, dig deep and overcome the schedule inequities that we have to stare down this week."

The Sunbirds will remain in Southern California to play Biola Saturday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. inside Chase Gymnasium in La Mirada.

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