SAN DIEGO - Azusa Pacific came with the offensive blitzkrieg into Golden Gym to shock the Point Loma men's basketball team with an 83-70 win on Saturday, Dec. 13.
 
The Cougars (9-1, 2-0 PacWest) scored the first seven points of the game to put the Sea Lions (6-2, 0-2 PacWest) immediately on their heels. PLNU fought back with an early 8-0 run to take the lead at 10-9 but this was their only advantage as they led for only eight seconds the entire game.
 
The Cougars' Troy Leaf paced all scorers with 28 points on 8-of-16 shooting. He also added four assists. His fellow backcourt mate, Robert Sandoval, added 15 points, six rebounds, five assists and five steals. The 83 points for APU was the most PLNU had allowed all season. The Sea Lions' opponents had averaged just 58.1 points through the first seven games of the year.
 
"It was a combination of being a step slow defensively and them being very good offensively," said PLNU head coach Bill Carr. "The pace of the game favored them."
 
PLNU trailed 46-35 at the half and fell behind by as many as 20 points early in the second half. However, Point Loma would not cede the game and got the lead all the way back down to seven points (75-68) but APU hit all eight of their free throws in the final 79 seconds.
 
"We finally got (the pace) under control but we couldn't make the plays necessary to come back from being down 20," said coach Carr. "You can't give a good team like Azusa a 20 point lead and expect to come back. That is too big a hole, but this a long conference season. There are 20 games and we will live to fight another day."
 
Judd Welfringer had his first career double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds to help lead the Sea Lions. Junior Morgan matched Welfringer with 15 points as he hit all nine of his shots from the charity stripe. Lescault also chipped in with 12 points. Marek Klassen hit a pair of treys in the game to extend his streak to 37 straight games with a 3-point basket.
 
PLNU is now 0-5 all-time against Azusa Pacific in PacWest play, and 49-67 overall.
 
Point Loma will return to action in a week (Dec. 20) against PacWest opponent Fresno Pacific on the road starting at 7:30 p.m.
 
"We have to get better," noted coach Carr. "The goal is to get better as the season goes along and be tougher to play later in the year."