Senior Nasser Al-Rayes (Doha, Qatar \/ American School of Doha) scored a career-high 24 points and completed the double-double with 12 rebounds in the Caltech men’s basketball team’s 95-83 SCIAC-opening victory on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
With the win, Caltech starts SCIAC play 1-0 and breaks into a five-way tie for first place in the conference while Whittier drops to 0-2 in the SCIAC.<\/p>\n
Al-Rayes started the scoring for the Beavers with two free throws and it was back-and-forth from there. After Caltech went up 7-4, Whittier fired back with an 8-0 run to take the lead, but senior Ricky Galliani (Menlo Park, Calif. \/ Sacred Heart Prep) hit his second of four three-pointers to cut into the margin and fired up the Beavers’ offense. Sophomore Brent Cahill (Laguna Beach, Calif. \/ St. Margaret’s) would then enter the game and rattle off the next 11 points for Caltech as the hosts took back the lead from Whittier, 21-20.<\/p>\n
The Beavers briefly stretched that lead to five before Whittier came back to tie the game at 33-33, but a layup by senior David LeBaron (San Diego, Calif. \/ Francis Parker), an Al-Rayes jumper and Galliani trifecta staked the Beavers to a game-high seven-point edge with 3:26 remaining in the half.<\/p>\n
The Poets fired back with a flurry of scoring, but it was met shot-for-shot by the Beavers, including an Al-Rayes dunk in the final minute. Sophomore Andrew Wang (Germantown, Md. \/ Poolesville) layed in an acrobatic shot with 11 seconds on the clock to keep it a two-possession game, but Poets leading scorer Louis Kurihara nailed a deep three-pointer at the buzzer to cut the lead to two going into the half, 44-42.<\/p>\n
Caltech kept its offense rolling in the second half as LeBaron scored back-to-back buckets in the opening two minutes, with both baskets assisted by Al-Rayes. Another Galliani three began a seven-point run for Caltech before Whittier would score again and call a timeout. LeBaron kept the scoring going with a free throw and three-pointer to give Caltech its first 10-point lead of the contest with 14:26 remaining in the game, then sank a layup to negate a pair of Poets free throws.<\/p>\n
Al-Rayes and Cahill then combined to score 17 of the Beavers’ next 19 points before freshman Alec Andrews (Folsom, Calif. \/ Folsom) earned several trips to the free throw line, contributing to a game-high 18-point lead with 2:34 left to play. As Whittier resorted to fouling, the Poets managed to cut into the deficit a bit, but never came closer than nine. Al-Rayes capped the impressive team performance and set his new scoring mark with a thunderous dunk that sent the packed crowd into a frenzy.<\/p>\n
Four Beavers scored in double digits, with Cahill notching 21 off the bench on 6-for-9 shooting and 9-for-11 from the free throw line. LeBaron and Galliani scored 18 and 15, respectively, with LeBaron adding five assists and Galliani grabbing nine rebounds.<\/p>\n
Eslinger and the Beavers head to SCIAC rival Occidental College (8-2 overall, 0-1 SCIAC) on Thursday, Jan. 5 at 7 p.m. for a rematch of the season-opening 110 Rivalry game, in which Oxy prevailed, 61-45.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Senior Nasser Al-Rayes (Doha, Qatar \/ American School of Doha) scored a career-high 24 points and completed the double-double with 12 rebounds in the Caltech men’s basketball team’s 95-83 SCIAC-opening victory on Tuesday night. With the win, Caltech starts SCIAC play 1-0 and breaks into a five-way tie for first place in the conference while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boysbasketball","category-topstories"],"yoast_head":"\n