Concordia’s Justin Johnson put Westmont in a hole on Thursday night and foul trouble kept the Warriors from digging out, resulting in a 79-70 GSAC-opening loss at Murchison Gym.
Johnson tallied a game-high 26 points – 16 in the first half – for the No. 8 Eagles, who are undefeated on the season at 9-0. Westmont falls to 4-2 and 0-1 in conference.
Westmont point guard Chris Jackson releases a tear-drop from 16 feet out.
“We had a very hard time guarding (Johnson). I thought on their end, he was the player of the game,” said Warriors head coach John Moore. “On our end, I thought we competed, I thought we showed a lot of toughness and I was real encouraged by how we played even to come back.”
Matt LeDuc led the Warriors in scoring with 19 points on 8-for-10 shooting while Blake Bender continued his recent tear, posting a double-double with 18 points, 13 rebounds.
Westmont, down by one at halftime, fell behind by as many as 10 points in the second half, the last time at 58-48 with 12 minutes remaining. Showing off that toughness, the Warriors chipped away to get within four points with less than three minutes on the clock.
But Westmont didn’t have much left in the tank as Bender and LeDuc both fouled out. Dan Rasp and John Miller, Westmont’s other two big men in uniform, were limited down the stretch with four fouls each. The foul-trouble situation was exacerbated by the abscence of injured center Evan Haines.
“We don’t have much depth right now so I just have to play smarter in the first half,” said Rasp, unhappy to have picked up what he thought were silly fouls, his third coming 11 seconds before halftime.
Rasp, Westmont’s leading scorer at 14.6 ppg coming into the game, played only seven minutes in the second half after picking up his fourth foul with 18:31 remaining in the game.
“The three guys who have to play more minutes because Evan is out, they’re the ones who are in foul trouble today so it makes it really challenging to get those minutes back,” Moore said.
Westmont grabbed a 15-9 lead to start the game on a two-handed dunk from Dan Rasp and owned a 32-25 lead with two minutes left until halftime before allowing Concordia to close out the half on a 10-2 run to take a lead into the locker room that it would not relinquish.
All five Concordia starters were double-digit scorers. A.J. Gasporra backed up Johnson’s 26 with 13 points and Ben Smith added 12.
Westmont point guard Chris Jackson came into the game ranked first in the NAIA in steals per game (3.8) and second in assists (7.2). The senior improved on assists with eight but recorded just one steal.
The Warriors will seek out their first GSAC win in their next contest on Saturday at Hope International.
