Youth Serves Pepperdine in Opener : College basketball: Freshmen Merrill and Marcaccini lead the way in 72-66 victory over Cal State Dominguez Hills.

If a college basketball team is only as good as its seniors, as new Pepperdine Coach Tony Fuller suggested recently, this could be a long season for the Waves.

The fact that Pepperdine lacks experienced leadership was plainly evident Saturday as the Waves rallied behind two freshmen to defeat Cal State Dominguez Hills, 72-66, at Firestone Fieldhouse.

In their college debuts, reserve forward Josh Merrill led Pepperdine with 18 points on seven-of-10 shooting, and starting forward Monte Marcaccini had 15 points and a team-high eight rebounds.

“Josh Merrill came and saved us today, that’s for sure,” Fuller said.

But Fuller stressed that he doesn’t want his team to get in the habit of relying on its freshmen, even though the Waves have no proven go-to players.

“That wouldn’t be fair to them,” Fuller said. “I don’t want to put them in that type of a pressure situation. I would hope that our seniors and upperclassmen would lead us.”

Pepperdine did get a late lift from senior forward Clark James, who scored all of his nine points in the second half, but aside from that the Waves relied on underclassmen in a game that was too close for too long to suit Fuller.

“We need to work on a lot of things,” he said. “We didn’t handle the ball well. We didn’t play individual defense well. We have some guys who didn’t play today like they’re capable of playing.”

Pepperdine got only four points and four rebounds in 19 minutes from seven-foot junior Gavin Vanderputten, who was a head taller than anyone in the game, and point guard Joey Ramirez missed all five of his shots, finishing with two points in 32 minutes.

Dominguez Hills, which competes on the Division II level, traded leads with Pepperdine in the first half until Merrill made a three-point shot at the buzzer to put the Waves ahead, 36-34.

A three-point basket by Michael Whittiker to open the second half put Dominguez Hills (0-2) back on top, but Pepperdine answered with a 9-0 run that included two baskets by James to take a 45-37 lead.

Dominguez Hills, after falling behind by as many as 11 points, cut its deficit to 65-61 on a three-point shot by guard Chris Thompson with 1:44 to play before Pepperdine closed out by making seven of eight free throws, including three of four by Marcaccini.

Whittiker led Dominguez Hills with a game-high 21 points, but the junior guard made only seven of 23 shots.