Box Score

SAN DIEGO - Sam Okhotin scored a career-high 23 points, including 21 in the first half, and Junior Morgan added a double-double to propel the Point Loma men's basketball team to a 70-67 win in its Pacific West Conference home opener over Notre Dame de Namur on Saturday, Dec. 21.

The Sea Lions are now 7-4 on the season and 2-3 in the PacWest. The loss drops NDNU to 3-7 and 2-2 in the PacWest.

Okhotin was the offense for the Sea Lions in the first half. He went 5-of-6 from 3-point range and 8-of-11 overall en route to scoring 21 of PLNU's 31 points at the break. Those 21 points were set a new career-high for the sophomore from San Diego, eclipsing his previous career-high of 19 which he had last season against NDNU.

"Sam got a lot of his looks from our motion and some from broken plays, but he also made some plays of his own," said Point Loma head coach Bill Carr. "Late in the first half we started running some plays for him. Twenty-one points in a half is impressive and we needed all 21 of them."

Okhotin would score just one basket in the second half but that was when his teammates stepped up. Morgan scored 13 of his 14 points in the second half and added 10 rebounds. This was his second double-double of the season. Hayden Lescault also added nine of his 15 points after the break. He finished the game 7-of-11 from the field to go along with five assists and six rebounds.

Johnny Hutton matched Okhotin's 23 points to lead four Argonauts in double-figures. Don Washington had a double-double of his own with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Both teams took some time to find their rhythm early in the game. PLNU jumped on top 14-4 as Okhotin scored 11 of the first 14 points for the Sea Lions. NDNU would battle back and take aone-point lead with 30 seconds left in the half, but Lescault hit a driving layup with less than three seconds left in the half to send PLNU into halftime with a 31-30 lead.

Point Loma then opened up the second half on an 8-0 run to take a lead which it would never relinquish. While PLNU held the lead throughout the second half it could never put NDNU away. On three occasions the Argonauts cut PLNU's lead to three points, including with just 49 seconds left, but each time the Sea Lions student-athletes responded to earn the win.

"It was a good start to the second half," explained Carr. "We had been in finals all week and were a little sluggish in the first half. We were able to get that out of our system and play a very good few minutes to start the second half."

Point Loma shot 65 percent in the second half and 53 percent in the game. The reason NDNU remained in the game was their 17-5 advantage in second-chance points but the Sea Lions were able to overcome their minus-10 disadvantage on the offensive glass to earn the victory.

"Any conference win is a good one," Carr added. "They had already won two conference games so we knew they were very capable. They are a big physical team. We are going to have to get a little more physical and learn to grind. We are going to have to block out better and hopefully we can learn that over the break." 

The Point Loma men's basketball team will now be on an 11-day hiatus over the holidays. The team will return to action on January, 2 when it hosts Holy Names at 7:30 p.m.