Miles President's 20 points leads CMS Men's Basketball to 77-60 win at Redlands

CLAREMONT, Calif. -- The CMS men's basketball team led by just five at the half but a 20-point effort by Miles President helped the Stags pull away from Redlands 77-60 on Wednesday night at Currier Gym. CMS wins its third consecutive game and its ninth win in its last 10 games. 

The Stags improve to 12-3 overall and 4-2 in the SCIAC with the 17-point victory and Redlands falls to 9-5 overall and 2-3 in the conference with the loss. Miles President scored 20 points on 6-13 shooting to lead CMS past the Bulldogs in a pivotal road win. The six made three-pointers were the most in a single game in his career. 

CMS fell behind early 10-6 but immediately rallied to grab the lead with a two-point bucket by George Walker and a foul to cut the deficit to one, 10-9. JD Levine made two free-throws to put the Stags in front 11-10 but Brittian Foster made a layup to give the Bulldogs back the lead 12-11 at the 14:10 mark of the first half. 

The Stags fell behind 22-17 on a three by Hass Berry and that deficit stayed the same for the next three minutes and one second when Maxwell Kirsch made a jumper to cut into the lead and climb back to within three points, 22-19. Mitchell Kirsch put home a layup to cut the deficit to one point 22-21 with 5:55 left in the first stanza. 

Levine sank back-to-back threes to push the Stags back in the lead, 27-22 at the 4:13 mark of the opening 20 minutes. Redlands responded with back-to-back threes of its own as Jack Roggin hit the jumpers 35 seconds apart and put the Bulldogs up one point, 28-27 with three minutes left. 

President drilled a big three-pointer to grab back the advantage, 30-28 with 2:32 left in the opening frame. The Stags held the Bulldogs scoreless for the remainder of the first half and President made another three-pointer to extend the advantage to 33-28 at the break. 

CMS shot 46.2 percent in the opening 20 minutes going 12-26 as a team from the floor. President finished with eight points on 2-6 from the field with both made shots being three-pointers to lead the way into the halftime break. The Stags shot 4-12 from three-point range (33.3%) and 5-7 from the free-throw line (5-7).

President started the second half exactly the way he finished the first half, with a made three to stretch the advantage to 36-28 after Kameron Wright missed a layup on the half-opening shot attempt for Redlands. 

Jeremy Horn made two of his six points to stretch the edge to eight, 38-30 at the 17:46 mark of the second half. Brian Kenyon drilled a big early three and put the Stags up by their largest lead to this point, 41-31 at 16:29. Kenyon finished with three points on 1-3 shooting. Roggins hit back-to-back shots to cut the Stags lead to 41-38 off a three-pointer with 14:05 remaining but a layup by Kele Mkpado just 26 seconds later pushed the edge to five, 43-38. Mkpado finished with 11 points off the bench on 5-5 from the field marking his second time finishing perfect in field goal shooting this season. He also collected four rebounds and dished out two assists. 

Redlands cut the deficit to three points with a bucket by Spencer Bandow with 12:23 left but Walker immediately responded, as the Bulldogs and Stags traded buckets, with two of his seven points on 2-3 from the field for the night pushing the lead back to five, 45-40 with 11:57 left. 

The Bulldogs would cut the advantage to just three points one more time before Horn made a jumper at the 9:51 mark to stretch it back to five once again, 49-44. President lifted the Stags lead to eight points with a three at 8:18 in the second stanza and then drilled another three-pointer to push the advantage to 11, 55-44 with 7:53 left. 

Mitchell Kirsch made a layup to push the Stags advantage to the 13 (57-44) with 7:03 remaining in the game. Another basket drilled, this time a three-ball by Mitchell Kirsch helping the Stags pull away to a 60-46 advantage and eventually a 77-60 victory. The Stags' largest lead of the game was a 21-point advantage, 70-49, with 2:54 left to play. 

President and Mkpado continued to pour it on with three-pointers of their own and the Stags take a big step in the SCIAC with a huge 17-point victory. 

Three Stags finished in double digits, in addition to President's 20 points, Mitchell Kirsch finished with 11 on 4-4 shooting from the field including 1-1 from three-point range, and Mkpado finished with 11 points over 18 minutes off the bench.

CMS shot 50.9% (27-53) as a team from the field and finished with 44.0% shooting (11-25) from three-point distance alongside 12-15 from the free-throw line (80.0%). The Stags shot 55.6% in the second half and after scoring 33 points in the first 20 minutes, unleashed 44 points over the second 20-minute session to pull away.

The Stags have won their third in a row and ninth win in the last 10 games and will be back in action on Wed., Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. at Roberts Pavilion as they face Occidental. The Tigers defeated La Verne tonight by the final of 86-63.