Offensive Explosion Leads Stags Basketball Past Occidental 111-75

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Josh Angle had 24 points and Caelan Jones added 23 as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's basketball team hit the 100-point mark with five minutes left and captured a 111-75 win over Occidental on Wednesday evening at Roberts Pavilion.

With the win, CMS improves to 15-5 overall and 9-2 in the SCIAC, keeping pace with Cal Lutheran (10-1) and Pomona-Pitzer (9-2), which each won Wednesday night as well in the three-way battle for the regular season SCIAC title. Occidental falls to 13-6 overall and 6-5 in the SCIAC with the loss. 

CMS broke the game open over the final 10 minutes of the first half to take a 48-27 lead into the break, and then scored 63 points after halftime to reach 111 for the game. The Stags shot 59.2 percent from the floor, and hit half of their three-point shots (17-34), falling one shy of the most three-pointers in a single game (18 vs. Pomona-Pitzer in 1995). 

Reid Jones added 14 points off the bench, James Frye had 13 and Rhett Carter added 10 for the Stags, who had five players in double figures. Will Householter just missed with eight points on 3-4 shooting, and Jonah Heimann had six points on two three-pointers in the final three minutes to close out the scoring. Matt Meredith also had seven points (on 3-3 shooting off the bench). 

Angle knocked down six three-pointers, coming one shy of his career-high of seven set in a win over Mary Hardin-Baylor last year. He how has 208 in his career, leaving him 14 shy of the CMS record of 222, set by Bob Donlan from 1998-2002. Jones, meanwhile, knocked down five of his seven attempts from beyond the arc, and shot 8-10 from the floor overall on his way to 23 points. 

CMS also had 31 assists as a team, with several players contributing to that total. Frye led with six, while Angle and Will King had five apiece, and Householter and Meredith each had four. 

CMS will be back in action when it hosts Chapman for a 2 p.m. contest on Saturday. The Panthers handed the Stags one of their two conference losses back on Dec. 2.