Torrid Toro Cagers Top Eagles for 9th in Row

Those pesky Golden Eagles of Cal State Los Angeles did their thing again Thursday night, battling one of the top teams in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. down to the wire before losing.

This time the opponent was host to Cal State Dominguez Hills. The Toros, who were forced into double overtime before downing L.A. three weeks ago, got another scare before a crowd of only 500 before prevailing, 62-53, to maintain a tie for first place in the CCAA with Riverside, which beat Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Thursday, 85-66.

The win was the ninth consecutive for the Toros--a school record. Dominguez Hills is 10-1 and 18-6 overall.

How in the world Cal State Los Angeles is 1-10 in CCAA play is hard to explain. This is the same Los Angeles team that also battled third-place Bakersfield into triple overtime last week and lost to then nationally top-ranked Riverside by only 4 points the week before. Maybe it’s the fact that the Golden Eagles (3-21 overall) don’t have a real finisher, a player who can come through in the clutch, someone Dominguez Hills has in the form of senior center Anthony Blackmon.

Someone suggested that maybe Cal State L.A. has a way of making its opponents play “down” to its level. The statistics from the first half Thursday suggest that. The Golden Eagles trailed only 28-22 after the first 20 minutes, despite shooting 39% from the floor and committing eight turnovers.

Yet, Dominguez Hills did little better, hitting only 42% from the field. One of the team’s problems: In the patterned offense of Coach Dave Yanai, only one or two players, most notably Blackmon, look comfortable taking anything but a high-percentage shot. That allows the defense to drop off some of the Toros and concentrate on others.

Although they never led, the Golden Eagles pulled to within 2 points twice in the final 10 minutes.

A basket by David Porter with 5:46 left cut the Dominguez Hills lead to 45-44, but a pair of baskets by forward Kenyatta Kalisana, who has been asserting his offensive abilities in recent games, and one by Blackmon upped the Toro lead to 52-46.

Blackmon, who finished with 16 points, became the second-leading scorer in Toro history.

Cal State L.A. 70, Dominguez Hills 69. The Golden Eagles narrowly avoided the upset when Lori Thompson made one of two free throws with 2 seconds to go in the game. Thanks to 27 fouls by the Toros, L.A. went to the line 36 times and made 26. The loss was the eighth consecutive CCAA defeat for the Lady Toros (1-9, 6-16 overall).