ARLINGTON--- The California Baptist University men's basketball team headed to Arlington to face the Mavericks in a Western Athletic Conference clash for the first time in program history. Before joining the WAC this season, the Mavericks were previously residents of the Sun Belt Conference. The Lancers took the first-ever meeting between these two programs with a 74-66 victory as
Taran Armstrong led the way in another impressive showing.
The win marked the largest road victory of the season for the Lancers and kept them on a hot streak as winners of five of their last six games. CBU evened up its conference road record at 2-2 and put them in a tie with Sam Houston State for fifth place in the conference standings. Arlington falls to 2-7 in their conference slate.
In the first half, offense was hard to come by for both teams early on as they struggled to score. The Lancers went on a 12-3 run midway through to take the lead and kept it throughout the first half.
Riley Battin had a putback layup before time expired to put CBU up 30-25 going into the break.
Taran Armstrong led all scorers with 12 points and three assists. CBU managed to shoot 52% from the field and held the Mavericks to 10-25 shooting.
In the second half, the Mavericks came out firing as they opened on a 10-2 run to take the lead from the Lancers and held the advantage until the 9:22 mark when
Joe Quintana knocked down back-to-back triples including a four-point play to retake the lead for CBU. Quintana scored 15 out of his 17 points in the second period. Taran was clutch from the free throw line, hitting 11 out of 13 to keep the Mavericks at bay. After a shaky start from the free throw line, the Lancers hit 19 free throws in the second half alone to secure the road win.
Taran Armstrong tied his career high in points with 24 that he set in an overtime loss to Minnesota at the SoCal Challenge. Armstrong also tied his season high with seven assists, and his 11 free throws were the most he has made in a single game in his career. Quintana also tied his season high with 17 points, and
Blondeau Tchoukuiegno had his most points in a Lancer uniform with 12 points off the bench.
As a team, the Lancers knocked down 22 free throws, the second-best total of the season, outscoring the Mavericks by 16 in that category.
Next, the Lancers will stay in the Lone Star State and head south to face the UTRGV Vaqueros in Edinburgh on Saturday, January 28th, with tip-off scheduled for 4:30 pm PST.
