COLLEGE ROUNDUP : SCC Rallies to Beat Christ College

Thanks to a frantic rally, Southern California College made a strong argument Friday night in its bid to play host to an NAIA District 3 men’s basketball playoff game.

The Vanguards defeated visiting Christ College Irvine, 87-79, in the Golden State Athletic Conference finale for both teams. According to SCC Coach Bill Reynolds, the victory should sew up a spot for the Vanguards among the top four seeded teams in the NAIA District 3 playoffs.

District coaches will meet Sunday to hand out playoff berths and the top four seeded teams have a first-round home game. Both SCC (19-11, 8-4) and CCI (15-14, 5-7) are expected to land playoff berths.

“It’s out of our hands, but I really believe beating a good team like this, we deserve a home game,” Reynolds said. “We proved it. But you never know.”

That’s why you should never count the Vanguards out of a game. They trailed by 13 points with just more than 14 minutes to play. But led by the shooting of John Naro and Scott Campbell and the hustle of Mike West, the Vanguards stormed past the Eagles. They took the lead for good with 3 1/2 minutes left and then used pressure defense to pull away.

Campbell scored 20 points, including two on a thunderous dunk. Naro scored 15 of his 17 points in the second half. West scored 19 points and grabbed seven rebounds. Point guard Danin Bryant scored 17 points and had 11 assists.

The Vanguards also were impressive from the free throw line, making 23 of 25.

“We almost were out of it,” West said. “We just said, ‘We have to show some heart for the fans in our last home game.’ Now we should get another home game.”

CCI Coach Greg Marshall said he thinks the Vanguards, who also beat the Eagles last month, earned a home playoff game with the victory.

“Sure they did. They just beat the best team in the district,” Marshall said with a laugh. “No, but I’m going to vote for them.”

CCI was led in scoring by burly forward D’Andre Brown. He scored 25 points, mostly on shots inside, but he had to work hard for almost every basket.

“They had strong weak-side defense,” Brown said. “They are scrappy.”

In the Big West Swimming and Diving championships:

UC Irvine men third--UC Irvine’s Erik Walton took first place in the 100-yard backstroke (50.24), while teammate Jason Sakamoto took third in the 100 breaststroke (56.46) and the Anteater men were in third place with 457 points, behind UC Santa Barbara (541.5) and Nevada Las Vegas (529.5) after two days of competition at Long Beach Belmont Plaza pool. In the women’s events, Danielle Pajer finished third in the 100 breaststroke (1:05.51) for Irvine, which is in sixth place with 213 points.

In Mountain Pacific Sports Federation men’s volleyball:

UCLA 3, UC Irvine 0--Chad Milling had 11 kills for Irvine (1-9, 0-8), which lost 15-1, 15-6, 15-4 at UCLA. Tim Kelly had nine kills to lead the Bruins (8-1, 3-1).

In women’s gymnastics:

Utah State 190.75, Cal State Fullerton 189.35--Celeste Delia won three out of four events to win the individual all-around for Cal State Fullerton (5-5), but host Utah State, ranked No. 15 in the nation, beat the No. 20 Titans.