CHICO, Calif. — The Dominican University of California men's basketball team showed that it can be a force this season by knocking off Chico State, 67-61, on Friday night in the 55th Annual Mac Martin Invitational.

The Chico State men's basketball team came into Friday's night home game with home-court advantage, a No. 12 national ranking, leading the nation in field goal percentage (62 percent) and three-point shooting (51 percent), a 2-0 season mark, and having won its last two games over Dominican by an average of 24.5 points.

None of that played a factor on Friday, as Dominican stunned the host Wildcats by leading for more than three quarters of the night and never trailed the entire second half. The Penguins held the Wildcats to 42.3 percent shooting (22-of-52) on the night and 10 percent lower than their average from the three-point line.

"The guys played well tonight. We showed composure down the stretch," said Head Coach Booker T. Harris. "This was a team effort at both ends of the court."

Matt Hayes scored the first basket of the contest and scored often — he led Dominican with 16 points and pulled down 10 rebounds for his first career double-double.The game see-sawed in the first eight minutes. Dominican took an early three-point lead on a Hayes three-pointer but Chico State also held a four-point lead thanks to a second-chance three-pointer from Robert Duncan at the 11-minute mark.

A Duncan layup at the eight-minute mark gave Chico State its last lead of the game, 22-21. Josh Ramirez answered at the other end with a layup and that triggered a nine-point run punctuated by another Hayes three-pointer. Dominican entered halftime with all of the momentum and a 35-29 lead.

The lead slipped to three to open the half but a seven-point Dominican run gave Dominican much-needed padding. The lead grew to 10 with 10:51 left to play but vanished just as quickly. The Wildcats clawed their way back and tied the game on another Duncan basket with seven minutes to go. Josh Ramirez scored four of his 14 points to regain the lead and the Penguins never trailed again. Dominican went 7-of-8 from the free throw line in the final 30 seconds to seal the victory.

Every Penguin to play on Friday night scored. In addition to Hayes and Ramirez, Dominique Taplin finished with 11 points and eight rebounds and Christopher Schwartz-Edmisten added nine points with four assists. The Penguins out rebounded the Wildcats 32-29 and made it to the free throw line three more times. Ramirez went a perfect 6-of-6 from the line.

Jordan Semple led all players with 18 points for Chico State and Duncan finished the night with 16 points.

The Penguins wrap up their trip to Chico with a 5:30 p.m. game on Saturday versus San Francisco State. The Gators got the best of Dominican last season 88-79.