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SEASIDE, Calif. — The Dominican University of California men's basketball team struggled from the field and dropped Saturday's non-conference contest at Cal State Monterey Bay 73-68.

The Penguins (2-2), who entered play shooting .465 from the field and .375 from downtown, went just 28-of-72 (.389) from the field and struggled from behind the arc, going just 2-of-13 (.154). Conversely, the Otters (3-2) made 29-of-53 (.547) from the field and made a third of their nine three-point attempts.

It was a close game early but a six-point swing midway through the first half turned a one-point Dominican lead into a five-point lead for the Otters. The Penguins cut the lead to a point but never quite got it going offensively and went into halftime trailing 38-29.

In the second half, Dominican chipped away slowly but saw the lead swell to a dozen with 12 minutes to go. The Penguins countered with a six-point run of their own to pull to 58-55 with six minutes to go. The MB lead hovered around six for the remainder of the game, until Dominican pulled within one, 67-66, at the three-minute mark on a jumper from senior Jammall Clark. Dominican was forced to foul though and the Otters sank six free throws in the final minutes to keep things just out of reach for the Penguins.

Cal State MontereyBay was led by forward Derrick Anderson and Alex Fertig, both with 14 points apiece.

Senior Jacob Noisat led the Penguins with 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting and pulled down seven rebounds. Junior Connor Haysbert added 12 points and six rebounds. Senior Guard Ricky Wofford also added 12 points, which included the team's only two three-pointers. Clark posted 11 points on the night. Junior Devin Golston snatched a team-high nine rebounds.

“We need to come out of the gate strong and play a full 40 minutes. We need to work on putting ourselves in a better position to win games,” said Head Coach Booker T. Harris. “We have a tough game coming up and we need to tighten things up with conference [games] on the horizon.”

The Penguins head to Division I Sacramento State on Tuesday, Nov. 27 at 7:00 p.m. before kicking off Pacific West Conference play on Saturday, Dec. 1. They'll face Holy Names University, one of four new members of the expanded 14-team conference and an old California Pacific Conference rival.