Westmont star Dan Rasp was having a relatively quiet night for the Westmont men’s basketball team, but sometimes it takes just one play to remind everyone who the team’s best player is.
Rasp emerged from a swarm in the post with 15 seconds remaining, grabbing an offensive rebound and scoring to put the Warriors (9-4, 3-1 Golden State Athletic Conference) up five in Tuesday’s 74-68 win over visiting No. 20 Cal Baptist (10-3, 1-3).
The Lancers were ranked No. 1 in the nation at the beginning of December, but are now just the latest victim of the streaking Warriors, who have won six straight.
“It was an air-ball and Andrew (Schmalbach) tipped it and it came to me. I don’t even really know what happened,” said Rasp, who finished well below his averages with 13 points and two rebounds.
On the whole, it was the balance in Westmont’s two-faced style of play that was the key… Two-faced in a good way, that is.
Coach John Moore has been going with five-player substitutions in the game to keep legs fresh, and the two sets of players didn’t look too different against the Lancers. Instead of calling them the “A” and “B” teams, the father-son broadcast duo of Ken and Kevin Kihlstrom has dubbed the two squads “A-1” and “A-2”.
“There wasn’t much of a difference tonight. There was absolutely no drop-off,” said Moore. “I was hesitant to do it in the second half, and they were as good if not better than they were in the first half.”
While “A-1” outscored “A-2” 47-27 in the game, the two scored at nearly the exact same rate when compared to the minutes each unit played. Sure, there was some mix-and-matching, but the point is that there is plenty of able help on the bench at all times for the Warriors.
“It’s like having five new starters come into the game,” said Rasp.
The Lancers bench, meanwhile, was good for only six points on the night.
Schmalbach led the way with 14 points, nailing three of his four treys in the first four minutes to help the Warriors keep pace. A Matt LeDuc lay-up with 12:34 left in the first half gave Westmont its first lead at 15-14, and things see-sawed all the way to the break.
The Lancers actually had a sizable 39-28 lead after a lay-in by Dave Cernin at the 2:15 mark, but Westmont fought back, converting a Schmalbach steal into a Tyler Dutton swish from beyond the arc to make it 39-35 at the half.
Blake Bender and Bobby Fenske were all over the glass to start the second half, getting some big buckets as the Warriors pulled ahead 52-48 on a longball by Bishop Diego alumnus Ryan Aijian with 12:23 left. Aijian, a sophomore, finished with seven points in 11 minutes and had his best game as a Warrior according to Moore.
Westmont stayed ahead for the rest of the night, and when things got close the Warriors turned to Rasp, their 220-pound slice of bread and butter.
A small group of fans chanted “over-ra-ted!” in the final ticks, but Moore said that he didn’t agree. He also said that the Warriors aren’t underrated by any means.
“I think both teams are right about where they should be. I’m not in any hurry. I want to be in the top 25 at the end of the season,” he said.
If they keep this up, they certainly will be.
