SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — The Dominican University of California men's basketball team dropped its home opener, 68-63, to Sonoma State on Friday night in the PacWest/CCAA Challenge.

Dominican (0-1) flirted with an early lead but was forced to play catchup for 31 minutes. The Penguins used a Ryo Tawatari three-pointer, followed by a Josh Ramirez layup and a pair of Reverend Maduakor free throws to take a 20-15 lead midway through the first half. However, the Seawolves (1-0) tied the game with five straight points from James Davis, who led all players with 23 points. The Seawolves grabbed an eight-point lead and Dominican had a chance to climb back into the game but missed several second chance opportunities. Instead, SSU maintained its lead and took a 38-30 lead into halftime.

The Seawolves grew the lead to 11 in the second half, though the Penguins twice cut the lead to four. The first time came at the 13-minute mark. A Ramirez fast break tip-in cut the lead to 50-46 and Cedric Thomas came up with a steal on the inbounds but threw it away himself. That resulted in an Avery Michael layup and two possessions later the lead was quickly back to eight. Another Ramirez layup, followed by a Ryo Tawatari layup trimmed the lead to 67-63 with 33 seconds to play. The Penguins fouled David Ahern, who missed the free throw but came up with his own rebound. His second-chance layup was blocked by Ramirez but Andy Mitchell came up with the offensive rebound. Mitchell missed a free throw but later made one with eight seconds to go to push the final deficit to five. The Penguins missed two three-pointers in their final two possessions and went just 3-of-23 (13 percent) from deep for the night. Subtract that from the Penguins' overall shooting and Dominican went 23-of-32 (71.9 percent) from the inside the three-point line.

Senior guard Christopher Schwartz-Edmisten led the Penguins with 18 points and pulled down seven rebounds. Ramirez added 11 points and eight rebounds. Tawatari came off the bench for 11 points of his own. Senior guard Matt Hayes, who was held to 1-of-10 shooting on the night, grabbed a team-high nine rebounds and dished out four assists. Junior Seth Turner added seven points and five rebounds in the loss.

The Penguins will face Cal State Monterey Bay (0-1), which fell 75-72 to Academy of Art (1-0) in the first game of the PacWest/CCAA Challenge. ART U led wire-to-wire and by as much as 13. The Urban Knights hung on after a last-second three-pointer by Alex Fertig didn't drop for CSUMB. Live stats and video will be available at dominicanathletics.com/live with live audio provided by radio.dominican.edu.