Seattle Pacific men’s basketball defeated Lewis & Clark College 89-71 in an exhibition match on Saturday, Nov. 2.
Lewis & Clark gained a 14-13 lead after the first 10 minutes. Seattle Pacific soon pulled ahead 22-18 and expanded the gap to 40-28 before halftime. Lewis & Clark defended well against SPU’s shots at the start of the second half but were unable to close the gap. Seattle Pacific maintained a double-digit lead until the final whistle blew.
Head Coach Keffrey Fazio was happy with the results.
“This was our first game against anybody else [and] Lewis & Clark’s a good team,” Fazio said. “They returned their top four or top five guys from last year, and they’ll be good in their conference. All things considered, I’m pretty happy with what we were able to do today. We certainly got a lot of work to do, but the goal today was to get the rust off.”
The exhibition allowed Fazio to see the team apply their new strategy in action and realize what they needed to work on.
“We’re trying to play a little faster this year. The challenge for us moving forward is learning how to be a little more consistent in some of our decision-making when we play fast [but] that just takes time,” Fazio said. “[This was] game one with a new system in place. It wasn’t going to be perfect, but there’s a lot of good things to build on.”
Junior shooting guard Owen Moriarty said the exhibition revealed the team’s strengths.
“Defensively, we could have done a better job of just sticking to our principles, not doing so much stuff on the fly and sticking to our game plan,” Moriarty said. “One thing I thought we did really well was rebounding and playing in the paint [beneath the basket]. We dominated them there, so I’m really proud of the team.”
Seattle Pacific men’s basketball begins their preseason when they host California State University Chico, California State Polytechnic University Pomona and California State University Dominguez Hills in the California Collegiate Athletic Association Crossover in Royal Brougham Pavillion from Friday, Nov. 8, to Monday, Nov. 11.
The tournament is followed by an exhibition match against the University of Washington on Wednesday, Nov. 13, in the Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion at 7 p.m.
