Some nights, you just can’t keep up with a team on a roll.
Some nights, you just can’t keep up with a team on a roll.
The Vulcans ran into that scenario Monday night when Cal Baptist shot the lights out in the first half and used a deep and talented bench to avoid foul trouble in the second half for a 85-77 win over the University of Hawaii at Hilo men’s team in a Pacific West Conference game at Hilo Civic.
The victory improved the Lancers, ranked 12th nationally, to 8-3 in conference play and 17-4 overall while it dropped the Vulcans to 4-7 and 4-11.
Michael Smith, the conference’s second leading scorer, averaging 19.5, bumped that number up just a bit with 30 points, on 12-for-18 from the floor. Salim Gloyd led the Vulcans with 28, Parker Farris had 19.
“We were playing them tough in the first half, but it was one of those nights for them, they just couldn’t miss,” said Hawaii Hilo’s Randan Berinobis. “They were making tough shots, it was that kind of night for them.
“In the second half, we had some bad turnovers at bad times that really cost us,” he said. “I think without those turnovers we would have beat them, but it’s a learning experience, we will build on it.”
Berinobis hit the right point. The Vulcans had 12 second half turnovers, 20 in the game, and Cal Baptist turned those miscues into 31 points. UH-Hilo plated too sloppy on a night it took on a hot shooting team.
The Vulcans head to Northern California for four game, starting Saturday.
“It’s set up for us right now,” Berinobis said. “We play some teams we can beat, so if we go sweep the Bay, we will come back home ready to get into the playoffs and then anything can happen.”
It is always a financial mismatch when these two schools play. Cal Baptist has one of the most heavily funded athletic departments in the conference, fully funded in the maximum allowable NCAA scholarships in every sport and enough coaches to make you think you have double vision looking at the bench. The Lancers brought six assistants to the game, all of them attired in matching gray slacks and white polo shirts. That all adds up to five more assistants and a handful of scholarships to play with that UH-Hilo coach GE Coleman doesn’t have.
Try as it might, UHH ran into an offensive buzz saw in the first half when the Lancers built a 40-28 lead while shooting 71 percent on 17-of-24 field goal attempts and then cooled off just a bit to finish at 65.5 percent on 19-of-29 for a 48-34 lead.
They cooled off in the second half, starting out 4-of-19 from the floor in the first nine minutes, but the Lancers seemed to catch a second wind and went on a 19-4 run after Parker Farris spotted an opening in the Cal Baptist zone and took the ball to the hoop for a layup with 11:56 remaining to trim the deficit to 61-51.
The Lancers were in foul trouble in the second half with one player who fouled out and two others who had four with 15 minutes left, but the CBU bench had more than it needed to take it to the end.
The Vulcans were able to tie the game once at 8-8 on a 3-point shot by Gloyd, but the Lancers then went on a 10-1 run to take an 18-9 lead and they were eventually able to expand it thanks to the shooting of Smith, who was 7-for-7 from the floor including 2-of-2 from beyond the arc and 2-for-2 from the foul line.