Box Score TURLOCK, Calif. — The Dominican University of California men's basketball team can't wait to get home for a change. The Penguins, playing their first game since Dec. 13, concluded a season-opening stretch of 10 road games in their first 11 games of the 2011-12 season Thursday evening with an 82-68 non-conference loss at Cal State Stanislaus. The Penguins (1-10) were trailing by only four points in the second half when the Warriors (7-2) went on a 22-5 tear to pull away for the victory.

The 10 road games Dominican has lost this season have come against teams that, going into Thursday night's action, had an accumulative record of 60-32, a .646 winning percentage.

“We're getting ready for our league,” said Head Coach Booker T. Harris. “We've had a tough schedule and competed well at times against some very good teams but, on any given night anybody can get beat if you're not ready. You have to show improvement.”

Xander McNally paced the Penguins against Cal State Stanislaus with a team- and season-high 15 points plus a game-high six steals, three steals, and just one turnover. Teammate Mark Lewis added 10 points while Jarred Pengel netted three straight 3-pointers in the last three minutes to score a career-high nine points.

Jacob Noisat, fifth in the Pacific West Conference in field goal percentage, had an off-night shooting (4-for-12) for Dominican. He had eight points, along with eight rebounds.

Myles Carrillo and Jammall Clark both had six points for the Penguins. Clark gave Dominican a 2-0 lead to open the game but the Warriors responded with seven straight points to put the Penguins in a hole. Stanislaus built its lead to nine points, 19-10, before Dominican staged a comeback.  A Carrillo 3-pointer and a Lewis lay-up sparked the rally and a 3-pointer by Ricky Wofford closed the Penguins to within two points, 24-22, with 5:41 remaining in the first half.

“In the first half, we played pretty solid and did some things well,” Harris said. “We needed to capitalize on some of their turnovers.”
The Penguins forced 12 turnovers in the first half. Led by McNally's seven points and three steals, Dominican went to intermission trailing 37-33.

Senior Reggie Jones, a 6-foot-9, 245-pound transfer, scored 17 points of his game-high 24 points in the first half. Jones, the California Community College Player of the Year in 2010, came into the game averaging 18.6 points per game, including a 30-point performance in Dec. 1 at Cal Poly Pomona.

The Penguins stayed within four points, 41-37, following a dunk by Noisat with 17:07 to play. However, Stanislaus then began to extend its lead, building it to 63-42 with 9:52 left in the contest. Dominican, pushed by McNally and Lewis, put together an 8-1 run at one point to close the gap from 22 to 15 points.

The Penguins will play three consecutive home games in five days next week to open the Pacific West  Conference schedule against the league's top three teams in pre-season: Grand Canyon University (6-2), Dixie State College (6-3) and Cal Baptist (6-1), the newest member of the PacWest.  Dominican welcomes GCU on Tuesday to the Conlan Center. Game time is 7:30 p.m. All three games will be broadcast online with audio at http://radio.dominican.edu and video at www.dominicanathletics.com/livevideo.