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Scoreboard

Malvin Payero at free throw
George Rodriguez
66
Dominican (CA) DUC 4-7,1-3 PacWest
69
Winner Biola BIO 9-2,3-1 PacWest
Dominican (CA) DUC
4-7,1-3 PacWest
66
Final
69
Biola BIO
9-2,3-1 PacWest
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
Dominican (CA) DUC 35 31 66
Biola BIO 36 33 69

Game Recap: Men's Basketball |

Shorthanded Eagles March Past Penguins

Biola had two starters out but still managed to get a win it needed over Dominican.

LA MIRADA, Calif. — Biola notched its 14th-consecutive victory over Dominican on Saturday night, but this one was no walk in the park. The visiting Penguins slid into Chase Gym and made it a bit uncomfortable for the PacWest favorites, forcing the Eagles to hit some late free throws to finish off a 69-66 victory.

'We had two starters out, and Dominican is a good, solid well-coached team. They played tough defense," said Dr. Dave Holmquist. "We needed to play well to win and I thought we did. Some of the guys we depend a lot on for scoring had a lot of pressure on them tonight, and I thought they came through."

Playing for just the second time in the last 14 days, Biola had to log this 40 minutes without its two biggest energy generators, Whitten Dominguez and Jesse Elrod. Both men are nursing some injuries but should return soon.

Maximo Milovich and Kevin Stone took their spot in the starting five for Holmquist, and each of those guys had standout efforts that really led to the BU victory.

"Teams try to take me, Alex and Chris away and other guys really step up," said Michael Bagatourian. "We saw Kevin Stone really play a huge game and Maximo is unbelievable. He does big things for us really well. Without Max, I don't know where we are."

Biola got off to a slow start in this game, watching Dominican score first and open up an 8-2 lead over the first four-and-a-half minutes. It took some heroics from Chris Rossow to wake up the Eagles' offense and get the game back under control for the home team.

Rossow scored 13 points and assisted two other buckets between 14:43 and 6:57 in the first half to completely flip this game on its head and transform Biola's opening deficit into a nine-point lead at 24-15. 

"Chris is what we call a gamer. When we need someone to get us into our stuff, he's our guy," said Bagatourian. "I think he's the best point guard in the conference."

Biola made nine of its 13 attempts from the floor during that run, while the Penguins shot just 30 percent and turned the ball over a few times.

The Eagle lead hovered between nine points and seven points until the very end of the first half where the Dominican offense found its groove in the final minute. Biola saw its 34-27 lead slip away as back-to-back Dominican triples right before the break made it just a one-point 36-35 lead.

Both teams shot exactly 50 percent from the field in the first half, but the noticeable edge for Biola was in the rebounding battle. BU led 19-11 at the break and would finish the game with a 37-30 advantage there.

Just as in the first half, Dominican got off to a strong start right out of the locker room for the final 20 minutes. They scored the first seven points of the half to make it 42-36 before Bagatourian began to take things over as a stabilizing force for BU.

Bags would break the drought to make it 42-38 and then he would score half the team's points during a 14-5 scoring run as the Eagles surged back out ahead 50-45 over the next 3:37 of play. Bagatourian had seven points in the first half, but really made his mark over the final 20 minutes as he scored 15 of the Eagles' 33 second-half points.

He was the leader in a key category for Biola, cashing in on five of his six free throw attempts to help Biola go 9-for-13 overall.

"The team that shoots the most free throws usually wins. We talked about that a lot, about getting fouled," said Holmquist. "Against the zone it's easy to get into a pattern of just shooting threes and not getting to the free throw line. We really talked a lot about getting the ball inside and driving it."

The end of the game had its tense moments, especially as Dominican pulled it within one possession inside of the final minute of play, but Biola never again trailed following the 15:08 mark on the second-half clock.

The Eagles had just enough in the tank without Elrod and Dominguez to get by a tough NorCal opponent headed into the Christmas break.

Rossow was the game's leading scorer with 23 points, with his buddy Bagatourian just behind him at 22. Both men had a great shooting night, with Rossow going 9-for-16 and Bags 8-for-15.

A lot of that shooting and scoring was facilitated by Alex Wright, who recorded double-digit assists (10) for the first time since his redshirt freshman season in early-2019. He had a double-double with 11 points to go with those 10 dimes.

Maximo Milovich was the game's leading rebounder with nine of those. He was 3-for-6 from the floor to add six points during his career-high 37 minutes. Stone had a season-high 26 minutes and was steady for Biola, dropping in five points, three assists and a pair of boards.

Playing a shorter bench than normal, Biola's starting five accounted for all but two of the points tonight.

The narrow win allows Biola to exhale a bit heading into a long break. The Eagles improve to 9-2 overall and 3-1 in PacWest Conference play. Dominican falls to 4-7 (1-3 PacWest).

The next game for Biola is another home game as they host Concordia Irvine () on December 30 at 7:30 p.m.

"It's nice to go into Christmas with a win," said Holmquist. "It would be tough going into Christmas if we let that one get away."
 
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