Dominguez Hills Is a Runaway Winner : Basketball: After leading by only two points at halftime, Toros race to 74-56 victory over Cal Poly Pomona.

Cal State Dominguez Hills’ 74-56 victory over Cal Poly Pomona on Thursday night was an opportunity for vindication for Vince Washington.

Washington, a senior center, had 20 points and senior guard Raymond Bennett had a game-high 24 as the Toros snapped a two-game losing streak against the Broncos in a California Collegiate Athletic Assn. opener at Dominguez Hills.

Last season, Pomona swept the two conference meetings for the first time in 11 seasons and only the second time in the 28-game series.

“We know all their players,” said Washington, who also had a game-high 12 rebounds. “This was for bragging rights. We thought about this game all week. We wanted to show the conference Dominguez Hills is for real.”

The Toros record is worthy of it.

With its fifth consecutive victory and ninth in 10 games, Dominguez Hills improved to 9-2. The Toros, off to their best start in six seasons, will host Cal State Los Angeles in a CCAA game at 7:30 Saturday night. Pomona, which lost for the third time in four games, is 7-6.

“We wanted to beat Pomona badly, but we’re going to remember this game for five minutes and then we’re going to look ahead to L.A.,” sophomore guard Chris Thompson said. “We don’t really think about the winning streak, we just need to concentrate on one game at a time.”

It took a little more than half the game before the Toros found their game Thursday night.

Thompson, who scored all 12 of his points in the second half, broke a 31-31 tie on a layup to spark a 12-2 run as the Toros stretched their advantage to 44-33 with a little more than 14 minutes left.

Bennett gave Dominguez Hills a 58-42 lead with his fourth three-point basket with 7:20 to play. Pomona never got closer than 10 points thereafter.

Curtis Bell finished with a team-high 15 points for Pomona but was limited to two second-half points. Jerry Curtain added 10 for Pomona, which played without starting guard Eric Jones because of a strained left arch.

The Toros, who had not shot above 40% from the field in its last two games, made 11 of 18 shots in the second half (61.1%), finishing 23 of 51 (45.1%) after shooting only 36.4% in the first half.

Dominguez Hills led, 31-29, at halftime after leading by as many as eight points in the first half. Bennett gave the Toros a 20-12 lead on the second of his three first half three-point baskets with 7:16 before halftime.

“We were up by two, but we should have been up by 15,” Dominguez Hills Coach Dave Yanai said.

The Toros, who have limited their opponents to an average of 54 points a game since a season-opening loss to Central Oklahoma, held Pomona to seven-of-27 shooting (35.9%) from the field in the second half and 17 of 51 (33.3%) in the game.

“It was a game of peaks and valleys, but in the second half we didn’t have any peaks,” Pomona Coach Kevin Patterson said.