Jammall Clark was the last to arrive among the five seniors on the Dominican University of California men's basketball roster last season. He didn't step foot on campus until the day before the first day of the school year in 2011.

Yet when the Penguins finish Senior Night festivities this Saturday night in the Conlan Center, Clark will lead his team to its first winning record and first post-season appearance in four years.

Though the Penguins' quintet of seniors were complete strangers when they came to Dominican, they have left an indelible mark. The team won eight of its last 11 games last season to finish fourth in the PacWest after being picked to finish 10th in a pre-season coaches poll. This year, predicted to finish seventh, Dominican has won seven of its last 10 games and will hold either the four or five seed in the tournament.

“We've probably exceeded outsiders' expectations,” Clark says. “To put together a whole new group of players who had never played together and didn't even know each other and we jell and win? Wow.”

Coincidentally, the Penguins' second-half surge the last two years has mirrored a rise in the 6-foot-6, 220-pound power forward's play. Last season, in his final 14 games, Clark averaged 12.3 points and 5.2 rebounds a game while shooting .582 percent from the floor. This season in his last eight games, Clark has averaged 13.4 points and 4.6 rebounds a game while shooting  .574  from the floor.  He has made 26 of his last 29 free throws as well.

“Jammall has been reliable in the trenches of conference play.  He has shown the ability to meet the challenges and play consistently in tough games,” said Head Coach Booker T. Harris. “If he approaches life after graduation and things off the court the way he stepped up in some of those games he will able to do well in his future endeavors.”

Clark, a Humanities major with a goal of pursuing a teaching credential after graduation in May, attributes his second-half success on the court to simple adjustments. Then again, his career at Dominican has been all about adjustments.  Coming out of Mt. San Jacinto Junior College, he was planning to play at the NAIA level until Assistant Coach Rich Mendoza called him one day and asked Clark about coming to Dominican to play.

“I was surprised but I was happy, too,” Clark says. “It was closer to home and at a higher level.”

With the Penguins, he was welcomed by his new teammates with open arms, playing and living away from home for the first time.

“It's prepared me for life on and off the court,” Clark says.

Nothing, however, could have prepared Clark for the night of Nov. 16, 2012. The Penguins were playing San Francisco State and were on the brink of losing to the Gators in the second overtime. But Clark banked in a miraculous three-point shot at the buzzer to tie the game, then Dominican won it, 115-110, in triple OT as Clark had a career-high 25 points and team-high nine rebounds.

The rest of the season has been a blur. Now Senior Night is upon him.

“It came pretty fast. A lot faster than I thought it would,” Clark says. “It's going to be pretty emotional. Even though I have been here for only two years, this school is going to mean a lot to me when I look back on it for what it has done for me.”

Clark arrived at Dominican at the same time as teammates Ricky Wofford, Jacob Noisat, Derek Ober and  three-point shooting specialist Jarred Pengel. All five seniors will be honored during pre-game ceremonies prior to the men's game against Academy of Art University at 7:30 p.m.

Before the women's game at 5:30 p.m., four-year seniors and longtime friends and teammates Stephanie Carnes and Kimi Nakamura will be honored. Carnes joined Nakamura and the Lady Penguins as a walk-on in 2009 and has wound up starting in 55 games for Dominican. The 5-foot-1 point guard has scored 221 points and dished out 127 assists in her career. Nakamura earned a reputation as a three-point shooter with 124 three-point shots in her four-year career, including a career-best 90 last season. Her game on Saturday will be the 106th at Dominican, where she has scored 755 points.

Clark's season will continue in the PacWest Basketball Championships March 7-9 at Azusa Pacific University, only a 45-minute drive from his hometown of Redlands. If the Penguins win the tournament, Clark's college career would end somewhere else. The winner of the PacWest tournament will receive an automatic berth in the 64-team NCAA Division II National Tournament. The Elite Eight will advance to Freedom Hall in Louisville, Ky. March 28-30 and the Division II Championship will be played at Philips Arena in Atlanta on April 7.

“We need to get into the PacWest tournament on a roll,” Clark says. “Once we get into that tournament, anything can happen. Crazy stuff happens in college basketball.”