Westmont Kicks Back, Almost Crashes as The Master’s Comeback Falls Short

As its lead swelled to seemingly comfortable proportions early in the second half Saturday night, Westmont College went into a cruise-control mode against The Master’s in the semifinals of the NAIA District 3 basketball tournament.

And while the Warriors’ mind-set was somewhat understandable, they would be well advised to stay awake at the wheel in the future--no matter how short a drive remains.

If not, they could run into another determined group such as the Mustangs, who stormed back from a late 19-point deficit to tie the score before losing, 67-64, before about 2,500 at Whittier College.

Westmont (19-11) scored four of the game’s final five points to earn the right to meet Azusa Pacific, a 67-50 winner over Biola, in the District 3 title game Tuesday night at Whittier.

“I think it’s natural for anybody to relax a little when you’re 19, 20 points ahead, that’s human nature,” Westmont Coach Jeff Crosby said. “But we didn’t do that by design.

“I told our guys that (the Mustangs) are a momentum team and to be ready because they were going to come at us hard.”

Trailing, 47-28, with 12 minutes 29 seconds to play, The Master’s used frantic, tenacious man-to-man defense to climb back into the game. The Mustangs went on a 10-0 run to cut the deficit to 47-38 with 10:38 left. The spurt reminded the team how it has usually played throughout a 19-10 season.

“We definitely thought we could win the game from there,” said senior guard Terry Minnoy (19 points) who, along with teammate Emeka Okenwa, sparked the comeback. “That’s when we started playing the ‘D’ we knew we could.”

Westmont found out too, as Master’s continued to clamp down. A three-point basket by senior guard David Humphreys (11 points) cut the Warriors’ lead to 63-61.

Then, with 36.4 seconds to play, Okenwa tied the score, 63-63, with a thunderous dunk that left expressions of disbelief on the faces of Westmont players.

The play was but one of many spectacular moves Okenwa made in the second half while scoring 16 of his game-high 20 points.

“I thought we had the game then,” said Okenwa, who also had 10 rebounds and five steals.

Minnoy had a chance to tie the score at the buzzer with a desperation 80-footer that hit the back of the rim and bounced away. Master’s struggled throughout the first 20 minutes and trailed, 29-19, at halftime.

After they took a 7-3 lead with about 16 minutes left, the Mustangs were outscored, 26-12, the rest of the half.

Westmont’s aggressive defense contributed significantly to The Master’s pathetic first-half shooting of 35%. Westmont shot 44.4% in the half (12 of 27).