Talley’s Foul Trouble Spells Loss for Oxnard

Remy McCarthy was noticeably upset at the repeated failure of the start of the 45-second clock in a Western State Conference interdivision game at College of the Canyons on Thursday night.

“C’mon, you got to do something about it,” the Oxnard College basketball coach shouted at officials in the second half. “It’s a big part of our game.”

Oxnard, which utilizes a deliberate offense, played without another big part of its game in a 65-57 loss to Canyons as guard Shawn Talley sat out the final 12 minutes 5 seconds of the first half after picking up his third foul.

“He’s their engine,” Canyons Coach Lee Smelser said of Talley, a 5-foot-11 freshman from Chicago who finished with 10 points--all in the second half. “He can set it up or dish it off and stop on a dime. He’s a class kid. It sure hurt them when he went out.”

Canyons forward Jeff Dorst did his share of damage too.

Dorst, who grabbed 11 rebounds, connected on seven of eight shots from the field and scored the Cougars’ first eight points of the second half.

However, Canyons (8-9), which saw an 11-point first-half lead evaporate into a 45-44 deficit with 7:46 left, also needed clutch free-throw shooting down the stretch to preserve the victory.

Canyons, which made 18 of 20 free throws, including 10 of 11 in the second half, scored its final five points from the line. Missed free throws down the stretch resulted in Canyons losses to Los Angeles City (74-69) and to Columbia (74-72) earlier in the season.

“We’ve been shooting horrible from the line toward the end of games,” said Dorst, a 6-foot-5 redshirt freshman who missed last season because of torn ligaments in an ankle. “We played like a team tonight instead of falling apart at the end.”

Nick Sanderson led Canyons with 20 points and Dan Murphy added 15. Andy Beltowski led Oxnard (10-8) with 19 points.