NENJI YILPET | senior staff writer

The Cougars pushed past Vanguard on the GSAC standings with a defining win of 74-61 at Vanguard University on Saturday, Feb. 23 at 7:30 pm.

A month ago, the Cougars stood in seventh place in the GSAC with a 3-4 record. Now they have shot up to 13-5 record and they are not stopping.

The Cougars did not give Vanguard a chance to lead at any point in the game. The teams tied three times with the Cougars carrying the largest lead of the game by 15 points.

Entering half time with a 10 point lead of 38-28, Cougars persisted against the Vanguard’s plays without backing down.

According to head coach Justin Leslie, Vanguard put forth solid plays and tried to charge at the Cougars, but the Cougars responded to all their runs both on the offensive or defensive ends.

“This really showed the mental toughness and the character of the team that has developed,” Leslie said.

Sophomore guard Michael Daneilian said they knew what to expect from Vanguard and did their best to push back.

“We knew we had to stop their shooters and that’s what our game plan was to take out their 3-point shooters and that’s what we did,” Daneilian said.

Daneilian carried the game in scoring. He reached a game-high of 21 points. Sixteen of those points were shot in the first half of the game.

“The big guys kept kicking it out to me and when I knocked down my first few shots it just got me going,” Daneilian said.

Junior guard Kimarley Williams was one of the huge defensive stoppers of the game.

“I just keep doing my defense every time,” Williams said. “If you bring the same momentum all the time on defense then it’s the same thing, it was not harder than other games.”

Another key player to the defensive and offensive end was senior forward Davon Roberts who dealt with being double-teamed for most of the game.

“It was a tough double team but I had good teammates like Kimarley and Mike knocking down shots so once I got the ball out to them and I boxed out so they can get an open shot,” Roberts said.

According to Leslie, there were a lot of players that stepped up at the right time. One player has not been the difference. It has been the accumulation of players who have taken the challenge and gotten the job done.

“The biggest thing for our recent success is that the team has bought into one goal and that is: team success,” Leslie said.

Playing Fresno and Vanguard were defining games for the men’s GSAC standings. Cougars held a tie with Vanguard for second place and thus with this win the Cougars are in still in a hunt for conference champion, according to Leslie.

“What stands out the most is the magnitude of what it means for the standings. It puts us in a tie for second with one game out of the conference and with three to go,” Leslie said. “So to go in there and play on the road like we did and exhibit the mental toughness that we did, I think this is a very big statement to our team for what we can be for the rest of the year.”

Daneilian attributes the recent success to the team playing better defense and playing together as a whole.

“This was a big help but we still got a lot of big games, we can’t get too happy. We got to keep going,” Daneilian said.

Williams said the team just has to keep winning all their games and keep playing strong defense.

“We just keep getting stronger and stronger. The coach, the defense and the team as a whole has been a part of us getting stronger,” Williams said.

The Cougars hold great anticipation for the upcoming games and recognize there are more victories to win.

“We need to take one game at a time,” Roberts said. “Every game we got is big from here on out. We got to execute our plays.”