SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – It is hard to beat a playoff caliber time three times in the same season, and the old adage proved true in Friday’s quarterfinal between No. 5 Azusa Pacific and No. 4 Point Loma, who beat the Cougars twice during the regular season, but drew the Cougars for a third time when the bracket was released on Sunday.
 
Azusa Pacific didn’t allow the Sea Lions to complete the sweep and came through a tough battle in the final game of the first day of the tournament, winning 66-64 with the help of Ken West’s game-winning 3-pointer.
 
Point Loma went on an 11-0 scoring run late in the second half to take the lead for the first time on Brock Mackenzie’s 3-pointer with four and a half minutes left in the game. Terrence Becvar answered with a 3-pointer of his own to tie the game.
 
After each team made one free throw, the score was tied again going into the final minute. Then Becvar hit another 3-pointer, this time to give Azusa Pacific a 63-60 lead with a small gap left between the shot clock and the game clock.
 
PacWest Player of the Year Kaden Anderson matched Becvar by hitting his own 3-pointer to retie the game with 20 seconds left. Azusa Pacific had a chance to hold onto the last shot, but West was more worried about getting his team the lead. Hayden Gray swung the ball around the horn to West, who was well behind the 3-point line with six seconds left to play, but that didn’t stop him from pulling the trigger. The Cougars’ leading scorer nailed the 3-pointer to take a 66-63 lead with four seconds left by the time the ball went through the net.
 
Becvar committed a foul as time wound down to prevent the Sea Lions from attempting a game-tying 3-pointer and the decision paid off. After Luke Haupt made the first free throw, he had to intentionally miss the second free throw, but time ran out before Point Loma could secure the rebound. With the win, Azusa Pacific improves to 21-9 and will advance to face No. 8 Alaska in the second round. Point Loma wraps up its season with a 21-10 record and a PacWest regular season trophy.
 
Azusa Pacific’s bench was crucial to its success on Friday once again, scoring over half of the team’s points with a total of 34. That allowed the Cougars to lead for almost three quarters of the game with that lead growing to as big as 11 with the help of an 8-0 run in the first half. During that time, Azusa Pacific’s defense held the Sea Lions scoreless for over five minutes.
 
Anderson led the Sea Lions’ comeback, scoring a game-high 32 points with 13 rebounds and three steals for Point Loma. He drew significant attention from the Cougars’ defense and drew seven fouls. Mackenzie and Ben Okhotin combined to make five 3-pointers.
 
As a team, Point Loma made nine 3-pointers to push the season total to 341 shots made from 3-point range, which is the new PacWest record. Okhotin finished the season with exactly 100 3-pointers made and is just the second player in PacWest history to reach the century mark in that category. He broke the Point Loma NCAA Division II era record set by Daulton Hommes in 2019.
 
West finished the game with a team-high 13 points, while Becvar had 12 points off the bench to go along with a team-high eight rebounds and three assists. McKelary Robertson and Sasha French went a combined 6 for 6 as part of the bench’s strong performance.