SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — It was the tale of two halves in the season opener for the Dominican University of California men's basketball team on Friday night. Unfortunately the Penguins, a first-half hole forced them to play from behind in a close 60-58 loss to Cal State Stanislaus.

Cal State Stanislaus, which is coming off a season in which they advanced to the Sweet 16, stymied the Penguins in the first half. Dominican scored just 19 points and had no player with more than three points at the halfway point.

The deficit grew to 14 before Dominican rallied. The Penguins remained nine points behind much of the second half until Dominican used a five-point swing on free throws by Dominique Taplin and Matt Hayes, plus a three-pointer by Hayes to cut the lead to four with under five minutes to play. Trailing by eight again, Jonny Bates found Taplin in the corner for a three-pointer, then Hayes came up with a steal at the other end. He pushed the ball to Josh Ramirez, who found Taplin ahead for the fast break. Dominican was forced to foul — CSUS made it to the free throw line 35 times — but cut the lead to a point by another Taplin three from Mathew Lipski. All-CCA player Chris Read put the Warriors lead back to two with a backend free throw. Tyler Barber fouled Christopher Schwartz-Edmisten at the other end and Schwartz-Edmisten sank both shots to tie the game at 58-58 with 14 seconds to go. However, Read would drive the lane and get to the rim with four seconds to go to put CSUS back ahead. That basket would hold up when a long-range three-pointer by Ramirez at the buzzer failed to drop.

"The second half was better. We still didn't do a great job of taking care of the ball — we had 22 turnovers compared to eight for them," said Dominican Head Coach Booker T. Harris. "Defensively we were alright, they only shot 33 percent from the field, 25 percent from the three, but we fouled entirely too much which hurt us."

Read led all players with 21 points. West Bartole scored 12 points with eight of those coming on free throws.

Taplin found a rhythm in the second half and finished the game with a team-high 13 points. Schwartz-Edmisten added 10 points. Bates was 2-for-2 from deep with eight points and Hayes added seven points.

"Hats off to Stanislaus, that's a Sweet 16 team that returns guys from that run. We showed that we can play at a high level," said Harris. "We just have to get better at executing and doing that. Our guys were resilient and amazing on the boards (41-29). Those returners at the end clawed back and we had a shot."

Dominican hosts Cal State East Bay on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the final game of the Penguin Preseason Conference Challenge. The Pioneers topped MSU Billings on Friday by the score of 86-80. Nick Grieves was one of five players to reach double digits for the Pioneers and led CSUEB with 19 points. Live coverage for both games will be available at dominicanathletics.com/preseasonchallenge.