SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – Dominican men's basketball could not slow down the sharp shooting from Concordia University Irvine, falling 87-70 Thursday night in the Conlan Center.

Senior forward Cedric Thomas finished as Dominican's (4-2, 0-1 PacWest) leading scorer with 16 points to go with six rebounds. Junior guard Sam Averbuck ended the night with 15 points, while going 5 for 7 from behind the arc, and recording three rebounds and two assists. Jordan Williams went 5 for 7 from the field to finish with 10 points. 

The Eagles (5-4, 1-0 PacWest) finished the night shooting 64.7 percent from 3-point range. The Eagles collected 34 points off turnovers and held Dominican to a 49.1 shooting percentage. Brian Chambers and Robert Taylor were CUI's leading scorers for the night, with 17 a piece, as both players were 6 for 10 from the field. Taylor was perfect from three, while also recording two rebounds and two assists to his stat sheet. 

Establishing the pace of play early in regulation, the Eagles scored the first five points of the game, as Jamel White hit a 3 from the wing and followed his own play with a steal and a coast-to-coast layup. The Penguins answered with seven straight capped by a spinning layup from Thomas to take the 7-5 lead. Taylor hit a deep shot behind the arc to help the Eagles regain the advantage and the Eagles continued on an 18-2 run, capped off by back-to-back 3-pointers by Tyler Lacour-Brown to take the 25-9 lead with under 12 minutes until the break. 

With four minutes left in the half, and the final seconds winding down on the shot clock, Chambers hit a fade-away 3-pointer to push the Eagles to a 34-17 lead. Jordan Williams responded by finding the rim on back-to-back layups in the paint to cut the Penguins' deficit to 13. With just over a minute on the clock, Averbuck gave the Penguins a spark heading into the locker room, nailing a 3-pointer cut the deficit to 10.

CUI extended its first half lead by forcing Dominican to turn the ball over and create more offensive opportunities. Eight minutes into the half, White stole the ball and passed it to Geoff Gerlach in transition, who set up Taylor for the layup, and a 44-30 lead. Sam Averbuck quickly respond with one of his five 3-pointers to end the CUI rally. 

Averbuck sparked one last comeback attempt for the Penguins with another 3-pointer in transition, kicking off an 8-2 run by the Penguins that cut the Eagles' lead to 54-46 on an offensive rebound and put-back by Jared Harper. After CUI was able to increase its lead back to double-digits, Ryan Hiepler nailed a 3-pointer to cut it to nine with 11:49 remaining, but it was as close as they would get for the remainder of the game.
 
The Penguins will look to bounce back Saturday night as they face Point Loma at 7:30 p.m. PDT. Live video and stats will be available online.