CMS Men's Basketball Rolls to 72-47 win over Cal Lutheran

CLAREMONT, Calif. -- The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's basketball team used a big second half to roll to a comfortable 72-47 win over Cal Lutheran on Wednesday night at Roberts Pavilion.

CMS improves to 10-3 overall with the win and 2-2 in the SCIAC and Cal Lutheran falls to 2-10 overall and 1-3 in the conference with the loss. Jeremy Horn scored in double-digits for the Stags, notching a team-leading 14 points over 17 minutes on 6-15 from the floor and 2-2 from the free-throw line. Mitchell Kirsch finished with 11 points on 3-8 from the field, 1-3 from three-point range, and 4-4 from the free-throw line. Josh Angle finished with a career-high 11 points to help lead the Stags past the Kingsmen and back into the win column after having their six-game winning streak snapped on Monday night against Chapman. 

Angle came off the bench to record his career-high effort, shooting 4-6 from the field including 3-4 from the three-point line over 14 minutes on the floor. The Stags held a 26-19 lead at halftime as Horn led the team into the break with six points on 2-7 shooting in the first 20 minutes. George Walker added three rebounds and four points to join Mitchell Kirsch with four points for the first half. CMS made just eight shots in the opening 20 minutes and knew a second-half push would be needed to pull away from the Kingsmen. 

The Stags outscored the Kingsmen 46-28 in the second 20 minutes and with Horn adding eight points and five rebounds in the second frame he helped lift CMS past Cal Lutheran by a comfortable margin. Mitchell Kirsch started the scoring in the second half with a three. Cole Thomas responded for Cal Lutheran to cut the CMS lead to 29-23 but Horn worked his way to the basket and made a layup to stretch the advantage to 31-23 with 18:13 left to play in the game. 

Brian Kenyon beat a defender to score two of his four points on the night and extend the Stags lead to 10, 33-23, with 17:47 left to play. After Horn stole the ball away from Thomas, Maxwell Kirsch drilled a three-pointer pushing the lead to 13 points, 36-23. Kingsmen Palmer Chaplin missed a three and Rhett Carter got on the board for the first time, making a jumper to give the Stags a 38-23 lead with 16:20 left in the second half. Carter finished with four points over eight minutes off the bench. 

Thomas cut to the basket for Cal Lutheran and made a layup to cut into the Stags lead and make it a 13-point game once again 38-25 with 14:48 left to go. The Stags went on a run from there; JD Levine made a three-pointer and after a miss by Chaplin, Carter put home a two-point basket to stretch the lead to 43-25 with 14:00 minutes left to play. Levine made a second-straight three and Angle added a long-distance three-pointer to push the Stags to a 22-point advantage with 12:16 left. 

Angle drilled a three and CMS held a 52-27 edge with 11:25 remaining. This stretch was all apart of a 14-2 run that put CMS out front and in a comfortable position with a 25-point advantage at the halfway mark of the second half. After two made free-throws by Houston Miles, who finished with just three points on 0-7 from the field and 3-4 from the free-throw line, TJ Askew made a three to keep the lead at 24 points, 55-31 at the 10:35 mark of the second stanza. 

Brooks Mallory missed a jumper and Horn finished a seven-footer to put CMS up by 26, 57-21. The Stags' largest lead of the game was 31 points with 1:23 remaining in the second half and CMS led for 33:16 of the 40-minute game after not holding a lead against Chapman on Monday. With a comfortable lead, CMS began to explore the depth of its bench giving Charles Meng, Grant Arthur, Alec Sinek, Kiran Kruse, and Sam Johnson some valuable playing time. Meng played four minutes, Arthur finished with one point over 10 minutes, Sinek played three minutes, Kruse finished with four points over three minutes on 2-2 from the field, and Johnson played three minutes off the bench with two rebounds and one assist. 

After a slow start, the offense poured it on in the second 20 minutes of play shooting 51.4% (19-37) from the field and controlled the boards 18-13 in the second half. CMS outrebounded Cal Lutheran 39-33 for the game and won the turnover battle 13-19. Thomas led the Kingsmen with a season-high 17 points on 6-7 from the field and despite playing over half of the second half with four fouls, he was able to match his season-high for the fourth time this season.

Horn played just 17 minutes, which is the least amount of minutes he has played since Dec. 7 at Cal Maritime when he recorded 11 points over 16 minutes on the floor. Despite the limited action tonight, he finished with double-digits for the seventh straight game and led the Stags with 14 points. CMS shot 9-24 from three-point range (37.5%) as a team and made 9-13 (69.2%) from the free-throw line.

CMS men's basketball hits the road on Sat., Jan. 11 to face Caltech at 2 p.m. and then will travel to Redlands to face the Bulldogs on Wed., Jan. 15 at 7 p.m. before coming back to Roberts Pavilion on Jan. 22 to host Occidental and Jan. 25 against La Verne. The Stags finish the six-game homestand 5-1 and have yet to lose back-to-back games this season.