Westmont slugged out a 46-45 basketball win over visiting Claremont-Mudd Scripps on Tuesday night at Murchison Gym.
“It was like a prize fight out there,” Westmont coach John Moore said of the low-scoring, defensive game. “(CMS) was incredibly physical with us. This was a tremendous home win for us against a team that is going to be incredibly good this year.”
Down by one with 32.7 seconds remaining, Westmont inbounded the ball and set up a play that culminated in Billy Keller driving down the right baseline and pulling up for a 15-foot jumper for the go-ahead basket with 9.7 seconds on the clock.
Daniel Carlin and Mantas Drungys disrupted two short shots by the Stags, with Carlin securing the decisive rebound after the final miss.
“Billy’s last shot was the perfect cap to his birthday,” said Moore. “For a guy who’d only made one basket up to that point in the game, to have the guts to put that one in is a real sign of what kind of warrior he is – he’s a gutty warrior.”
C.J. Miller led the Warriors with 14 points and an incredible eight blocked shots. Carlin scored 13 points and had six rebounds and two blocked shots.
“Daniel Carlin had a very nice game,” praised Moore. “What won’t show up in the box score is how many fouls he drew on their team, and how soon we got into the one-and-one because of those fouls. We didn’t shoot it particularly well from the line, but I thought Daniel provided many positive opportunities for our team tonight.”
