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OAKLAND, Calif. — The Dominican University of California men's basketball team used a strong first half to build a substantial lead en route to a 76-56 win at Holy Names University in the two teams' Pacific West Conference opener.

The Penguins (3-3/1-0) led wire-to-wire against the Hawks (0-6/0-1), one of four teams which joined the PacWest this season. Dominican used six straight points from senior guard Ricky Wofford and a 10-point run to take a 21-8 lead at the eight-minute mark in the first half. The Penguins then closed out the half with another 10-0 stretch with points from five different players that widened the halftime margin to 40-17. In the first half, Dominican went an impressive 15-of-23 (.652) from the field while limiting the Hawks to just 6-of-26 (.231) shooting.

The Penguins built the lead to as large as 27 but Tyler Fry single-handedly kept the Hawks from falling further out of the game. He scored eight straight points to keep the lead under 20. All of Fry's 21 points came in the second half on five three-pointers and half a dozen free throws.

Junior center Connor Haysbert led Dominican, who worked the ball inside for 44 points in the paint, with 18 points on 8-of-12 shooting. Wofford finished with 11 points and four assists. Freshman Matt Hayes added a season-high 10 points and senior center Jacob Noisat added 10 points on 5-of-8 shooting with a team-high eight rebounds.

It was the highest margin of victory since Heach Coach Booker T. Harris took the reins of the program last season but he didn't seem concerned about that.

“It's just nice to get that monkey off our back,” said Harris. “It's nice to start the conference [season] with a W but we need to keep working on things to get where we want to be.”

The Penguins continue PacWest play against another Bay Area rival, Notre Dame de Namur University, on Saturday, Dec. 8. Tipoff is slated for 7:30 p.m. at the Conlan Center. Live coverage will be available at www.dominicanathletics.com/live.