The Sea Lions opened up Golden State Athletic Conference play by defeating visiting California Baptist 76-67 Tuesday night in Golden Gymnasium. PLNU's win pushed the team to 3-3 overall, 1-0 in the GSAC. CBU falls to 5-2, 0-1 GSAC.

“This is huge win,” said PLNU coach Ethan Hamilton. “These early conference games set the tone for the year. This is the real start of the year. It's also vital anytime you can beat a good team like CBU.”

After an initial outburst by Point Loma which put the team ahead 15-10 after just five minutes of play, it was the Lancers who slowly grabbed the momentum and led by eight with six left in the opening stanza.

Rhett Beal, who has taken a secondary scoring role early in the season for the Sea Lions, stopped the bleeding with a pair of quick jumpers, though, cutting the deficit to four. The junior guard sank two at the line to pull PLNU within two.

CBU's Justus Von Wright made a shot, but Todd Campbell was good behind the arc for Loma. Marek Klassen followed a Greg Murray steal with a layup to give the Sea Lions the lead once again - this time for good. A Murray three, a pair of free throws by Campbell and a James Hancock jumper pushed PLNU's advantage to eight at the half, thanks to an 18-2 run.

Though PLNU would eventually lead by 12 points late in the second half and win by nine, the outcome was anything but decided.

The Lancers started the half on a rally and were within one once again. But the Sea Lions weren't to be denied Tuesday. Hancock reversed the CBU run with a bucket and Jake Johnston made two jumpers to make the score 54-47, PLNU.

Point Loma's lead swelled to double-digits at 9:27 and would hover around that mark for the remainder of the game.

“We focused on defense,” said Johnston who finished the game with nine points. “We got stops when we needed to.”

Both teams shot very well. The Sea Lions hit on 51.8 percent and the Lancers 51.9 percent. CBU made nine threes to seven from PLNU. Where Loma came out ahead was on the boards as they outrebounded the Lancers 33-19.

“We talked about a couple of things,” said Hamilton. “We didn't want to give away points at the line, they only had four; We wanted less than 12 turnovers, we had 10; and we wanted to hold them to less than eight offensive rebounds, they had five. Those were big factors in the win.”

Klassen led all scorers with 18 points, making 8-of-10 from the field. The PLNU guard also had seven boards and three steals. Hancock added 14 points with Beal scoring 10 and pulling down 11 rebounds.

Kevin Deebs paced CBU with 14 points with Von Wright adding 12.

PLNU travels to Westmont on Saturday for a 7:30 pm conference tilt.