November 9, 2023

Warriors Kick Off Season Against LMU

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By Francisco Claudio
 
The Westcliff men's basketball team played in their first game of the season as they faced off against the Loyola Marymount University Lions on Tuesday.
 
The Warriors started strong, making shots and defending with high intensity, which disrupted the Lions.
 
But Westcliff wasn't able to sustain that level and would ultimately fall to the Lions, 109-68.
 
The shots were falling early on for the Warriors especially Korey Hess who made a jumper to put them up 10-5 over the Lions.
 
Westcliff kept playing physical defense and were converting on the stops they were getting.
 
Cameron Snyder stepped back for a three-point shot and made it to put the Warriors up 19-14.
 
A couple of possessions later, Marques Sales nailed a three-pointer of his own to keep the lead at five, 22-17.
 
But the Lions slowly started to chip away at the lead and by the end of the first half completely turned the game around and were up 46-34.
 
"Credit to the division one team," said head coach Jerred Cook. "We schedule opponents like this for our men's basketball program to be able to compete at the highest level. The goal is to take the momentum into the rest of the season.
 
"We had some bright spots early, but unfortunately, we were not able to sustain the physicality and did a bad job of taking care of the basketball."
 
Westcliff struggled in the second half and saw the deficit balloon as they went down by 40 points.
 
"It's always 'us,' that's always my approach," Cook said. "We did a great job of running our plays at times that allowed for us to get easy looks and get to the free throw line. We were able to get to the bonus in both halves.
 
"We didn't convert at the line and also struggled to keep them out of the paint."
 
For the Warriors, Jamal Briscoe scored 13 points, grabbed five rebounds, and had two steals.
 
John Duff had 12 points, five rebounds, two blocks, and two steals.
 
Justin Boateng had 13 points and Hess added another 11.
 
"We won't dwell on this exhibition and will take it at face value," Cook said. "We lost matchups and didn't win categories.
 
"I'm looking forward to our team taking it out on our upcoming NAIA opponents."
 
The Warriors will have a quick turnaround as they travel to Portland to play two games this week.
 
On Friday, November 10th, they will take on Warner Pacific at 4PM.
 
Then on Saturday, they will play against Mulnomah for the final game of the road trip.