SCC defeats Santa Monica 102-97 in an Overtime Thriller

The Santiago Canyon Men's Basketball Team entered tonight's contest with a 6-1 record and a 3-game winning streak. The Hawks took on Santa Monica College in the first round of the Citrus College Tournament.  It was a hard fought battle that ended up going into overtime and SCC pulling out a 102-97 victory.  Santiago Canyon improves to 7-1 on the season and will play host Citrus on Saturday at 6:30pm.

The first half of the game was played to a tie at 37-37 with both teams shooting the ball fairly well.  SCC actually held a 12 point lead with 4:18 left in the half, but Santa Monica came back with a strong run to tie the game at halftime.  David Agba was SCC's leading scorer in the half with 10 points. Josh Griffin came off the bench and added 7 points.  Aaron Wadman was the team's leading rebounder with 5 in the half.  The Hawks connected on 4 of 10 three-pointers, but allowed Santa Monica to make 7 of 12 from deep.

Santa Monica came out strong in the second half and built an 8 point lead with 14:56 left in the game.  The Hawks would respond and cut into the lead by the 10 minute mark. SCC built a 7 point lead and Santa Monica answered back.  With SCC leading by 1 point, Santa Monica connected on a corner three-pointer with 5.7 seconds left.  However, Agba followed an errant shot and scored as the buzzer sounded to send the game into overtime.  In overtime, the Hawks took control and won 102-97.  Leading the way in scoring was Erik Howlin who scored 22 points with all 22 coming in the second half. Other double-digit scorers for SCC were Griffin (15 points), Agba (14 points), Wadman (14 points), Luke Guzman (13 points), and Preston Sims (12 points). Wadman led the way with 9 rebounds and 4 assists. SCC will play host Citrus on Saturday night at 6:30pm.  Tip-off is set for 6:30pm.