Stockton, CA (Men's Basketball) -- The Citrus College men's basketball team overcame a horrible first half in which they shot just 25% from the field and trailed by nine points to the South's #3 seed LA Trade Tech to pull out a 97-83 State Semi-Final victory on Saturday night.
The Owls, led by sophomore's Buchi Awaji (24 points) and Darren Moore (23 points), shot 55.2% from the field and out-scored the Beavers 61-38 in the second half alone, to help Citrus advance to the State Championship game for the first time since 1962.
When the game started, for the first time in a long time, Citrus looked like it had a long night ahead of themselves. Over the first ten minutes of the game Trade Tech went to work. The Beavers jumped out to a convincing 11 point lead after a 3-pointer by James Lewis made the score 26-15 in favor of Tech after just 10 minutes of play.
Citrus would answer with a trey of their own from Virgil Buensuceso, but everytime Citrus crawled to within striking distance, the Beavers had an answer. Lewis quickly came back the other way and hit a jumper in the lane pushing the Trade Tech lead back to double digits.
Trade Tech would continue to keep a strangle hold on their lead, and took that nine point lead into the half. While Citrus was shooting 25% from the field, Trade Tech was lighting it up shooting 51.5% in the first half alone. The Beavers were also strong from the charity stripe where they shot 90% from the free-throw line.
Over the first minute of the second half things looked like they weren't going to change, as Tech opened up the second frame with a jumper by Marquis Dubose that pushed the Beavers lead back to double-digits. At that point, something clicked and changed, as the Owls came roaring back.
Citrus answered the Dubose jumper with an 11-0 run, forcing the Beavers into a missed shot and three turnovers. When the run was done, Citrus had tied the game up and was ready to pounce. Trade Tech would finally break their drought with a 3-pointer that gave them back the lead, but that was when the Citrus sophomore's came through and took over.
Buchi Awaji kicked things off by answering Tech's trey with a fade-away jumper from eight feet out, and then a defensive rebound that he took the length of the court and layed up and in, giving Citrus the lead for the first time since the opening tip.
From that point on, Citrus would never give back the lead. The Beavers would keep it close for the next couple of minutes tying up the game on two different occasions. The second time Trade Tech tied the game up, the Owls went on another run, this time a 20-4 run that was book-ended by a pair of free-throws from Steven Bennet and Buchi Awaji.
When the run ended the Owls had a commanding 16 point, 79-63 lead, that they would never look back from. From there on, Citrus' lead would fall below double digits just once, when the Beavers went on a mini 5-0 run. The run was quickly broken by a lay-up by Ralph Monday and a fast-break dunk by Awaji, just before the Owls settled in four a 14 point victory.
Awaji and Moore would lead all scorers, but freshman AJ Gasporra wasn't far behind as he poured in 17 points, 16 of which came in the second half. Awaji also did a ton of damage on the glass, as he ripped down a game high 13 rebounds.
With the win the Fighting Owls improve to 34-1 overall, and advance to the State Championship title game against Fullerton College. Fullerton advanced to the title game thanks to their 93-76 victory over Bakersfield College in the first semi-final game of the night.
Sunday's match-up will be the second meeting between Citrus and Fullerton this year, as the Fighting Owls knocked off the Hornets 89-82 this season, in the third place game at the Riverside City Tournament back on December 7th.
Sunday's Championship game will take place at 3:30 PM live in the Alex G. Spanos Center at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA. You can follow along with the Fighting Owls on our live Game Blog or hear it live on the COA Website.
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