LA VERNE, Calif. — The University of La Verne men's basketball team could not stop hot-shooting Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in a 95-55 loss at Frantz Athletic Court on Tuesday night.
The Leopards finish the season 9-16 overall and 5-11 in SCIAC play. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps finishes 19-6 and 12-4.
Before the game, the Leopards paid a tribute to their four seniors—Niall Harrison, Karl Reyes, Brett Stephan and Josiah Sukumaran—with a brief pre-game ceremony. The quartet combined to produce 37 points but it wasn't nearly enough to contain the red-hot CMS offense.
The Stags hit six of their first seven shots in the game to get out to an 11-point lead not five minutes into the game and never looked back. CMS went into the break leading, 58-27, and shot 74.2 percent from the field including 9-of-12 from the three-point line.
The Stags opened the second half with three straight three pointers and converted their first six shots of the half to grab their largest lead of the game, 75-32.
La Verne used three pointers by Reyes, Stephan and Weston Newell to go on a 14-2 run in the middle of the second half and cut the lead to 29 with seven minutes to go. But that was as close as they would get as Tyler Gaffaney responded with a pair of threes and a free throw to stretch the lead for the Stags.
Gaffaney paced the Stags with 35 points on 12-of-14 shooting, seven rebounds and eight assists. He was a perfect 9-for-9 from the distance.
The Stags shot 61.4 percent from the field and went an incredible 15-for-20 from beyond the arc.
Reyes finished with 13 points and four assists for La Verne. Harrison added 10 points and Sukumaran collected a game-high 11 rebounds.
