WHITNEY CURTIS | news editor

PLNU'S Josh Sanerson scores 27 points on Cougars.

For the first time since 1985, Point Loma Nazarene swept APU and won both games in the annual series. The most recent Sea Lion-Cougar battle ended with an 80-77 score in favor of PLNU on Saturday, Feb. 2.

Sea Lion guard Josh Sanderson scored a personal record of 27 points in the game and played a crucial part in his team’s effort and victory on Saturday.

“Sanderson is a senior, and he’s been starting in this conference for two years, so there’s no substitute for experience like that,” head coach Justin Leslie said. “The points that he scored and the shots that he made were not because of our poor defense, but because of a senior stepping up and making big plays when his team needed it.”

APU trailed PLNU most of the game as the Sea Lions made 17 of their first 22 shots, but the Cougars came back toward the beginning of the second half when sophomore guard Mike Danielian made a shot to take the lead at 69-68 with sixteen minutes left to play in the game.

Sanderson made a three-pointer with only 4:50 left in the game. But the Cougars were not to be shaken yet as they pulled ahead with a one-point lead and a 24-12 run. Sanderson again saved his team with another three-pointer and a jump shot to put the Sea Lions ahead with a 78-75 lead and only 27 seconds of play left in the game.

Danielian not only scored his team high of 17 points, but also played a crucial role in pulling the Cougars out of their 11-point hole in the second half. A 12-4 run started by Danielian pulled the team within three points of Point Loma at 61-58. Another 10-2 run by the Cougars put them ahead for the first time since the middle of the the first half.

Senior forward Davon Roberts made a jump shot with 12 seconds remaining in the game, which pulled the Cougars to a one-point lead. The Sea Lions’ Nick Corso made two back-to-back free throws with seven seconds for the final score of 80-77.

The Cougars were out-rebounded by seven, but they did better than the Sea Lions in turnovers and were even in assists. Roberts was the team’s second highest scorer with 16 points and held five assists as well. Roberts knows he is a leader on the court and said that he feels it is his responsibility to play his game well and encourage his teammates.

“Most of the [other] team, their focus was on me, so it left my other teammates open and that’s when they need to step-up and make the big shots,” Roberts said.

Kimarley Williams held 11 points, five rebounds and had two crucial steals to help with the Cougars come back.

“Coach was telling us that we needed someone to come off the bench with spark, and I just came off the bench and went in there hard,” Williams said.

As the team improves in practice and looks to possibly move on to the national tournament in March, Coach Leslie said that he was proud of his team’s efforts, but if the team gets another chance to play against Point Loma, he hopes they would take advantage of the opportunity by playing more consistently throughout the whole game.

“I’ve always had confidence all along that this team can play against anybody,” Leslie said. “I think just the fact that we’re a young team—they need to prove it to themselves, and start to have that confidence, but I think we’re getting there. We definitely need to get better because we need to find ways to close out and win those games, but at the same time I’m very excited for the prospects of this team. I think they are starting to move forward and to play together and to play with a passion and an energy that we need.

First 10 GSAC games: 9-1; next two GSAC games: 0-2.

As the Cougars lost to the Point Loma Nazarene Sea Lions on Saturday, Feb. 2, APU was removed from the three-way tie for first place in the GSAC.

“Point Loma is a huge game for us; they are ranked two or three above us,” junior forward Nikita Gordon said. “It was really important to us to get in that game and it hurt that we didn’t win; everyone was pretty upset about it.”

The combination of the 24 turnovers made by the Cougars and the Sea Lions’ sinking 50 percent of their field goals set up a lethal game for APU.

Although the Cougars took the early lead in the first half, that lead was soon destroyed by the 10-4 run made by the Sea Lions. The Cougars began to make a determined comeback, making five more points and taking the lead, but they quickly lost that short lead again when the team went almost six minutes without scoring.

In the second half of the game, the Cougars fought hard to keep up with the Sea Lions pulling even twice before Point Loma came back with an 8-1 run that made the score 43-36 with 13:10 left to play. Still, Azusa Pacific fought hard to overcome and almost pulled even three more times, one of which was due to senior forward Abby Johnson’s 3-point play that made the score 50-49 with only 5:37 to play in the game.

“The 3-point play got our team more energized and it got us going on a role because from there we started playing better as a team and everyone got more excited and into the game,” Johnson said.

Though senior guard Sarah Leathers is known for her shooting, she went 1-for-11 in her 3-point shots, but made a crucial basket from the top of the arc with 4:38 left in the game giving the Cougars their first lead since the beginning of the first half.

“I think that was the most natural shot I got off, it was top of the key and all of the other ones were in the corner,” Leathers said. “I like the top of the key better and I think that I just didn’t think about that one as much as the others. I think I was just rushing the others too much and that one was just a kick-out which is easier as a shooter—it comes more natural and there wasn’t as much pressure.”

The follow-up to that “nothing but net” shot proved to be just as important though, as freshman guard C.J. Hill stole the ball from Kerra Sutton-Wodarski on the Sea Lions’ ensuing possession and passed it to Michelle Byrd for the fast break layup that put the Cougars ahead at 54-51 with 4:19 left in the game.

The game was close and in the Cougars’ favor, and after Sea Lions’ Katie Hilbelink’s 3-pointer missed they were ready to bring it home. However, an offensive foul on the Cougars put them back on the defensive, and when the Sea Lions converted their next five possessions, the Cougars knew they had lost their chance for the first season sweep of Point Loma Nazarene in fifteen years.

“Their center went 2-for-2 and their back-up center was 1-for-2 from the 3-point range. Our GSAC player of the week, who is an awesome shooter and ten times better than both of them, went 1-for-11 from the three,” Hardeman said. “When you don’t shoot the ball in basketball you’re going to struggle to win so I thought we took pretty good shots, and we wanted to shoot pretty much all of the shots we took.”

Hardeman is confident that the team will meet Point Loma again in the upcoming tournament in March.

“We’ll try to make more shots next time,” Hardeman said. “Our zone attack on them wasn’t bad, but there are areas that we have looked at improving.”