FRESNO, Calif. – Dominican men's basketball fell short in a 74-71 loss Saturday afternoon to Fresno Pacific in its final game of the 2019-20 season at the Special Events Center.

Junior guard Jaelen Ragsdale paced the Penguins (6-22, 6-16 PacWest) with 24 points and six rebounds, while fellow junior guard Jordan Williams added 23 points. Aamonde Coleman scored 21 points and grabbed five rebounds to pace the Sunbirds (11-17, 9-13 PacWest), while Adrian Antunez chipped in 21 points and four rebounds.

Williams went on an individual 6-2 run for the Penguins early highlighted by a pair of midrange jumpers to take a 14-10 lead after six minutes. Nehemia Allen provided the spark for the Sunbirds as he knocked down a 3-pointer to start a 7-point run to take the one-point lead with 12:51 remaining.

Ragsdale sank the first 3-pointer of the game for Dominican as they scored the next seven points of the game to take a 23-17 lead one minute later as the seesaw battle continued. Ragsdale knocked down his second shot behind the arc and Williams added a layup to push the Penguin lead to nine, but FPU slowly chipped away as Coleman sank a free throw to cut the deficit to 30-27 with 7:15 left in the half.

Sam Averbuck knocked down a 3-pointer to halt the momentum and Thomas Faustka grabbed an offensive rebound and laid the ball in to extend the lead back to nine with 4:30 on the first half clock. After trading buckets for the next three minutes, the Sunbirds scored the last five points of the half as Jonathan Brown knocked down a 3-pointer at the buzzer to trim the Dominican lead to 46-43 at the break.

Antunez led FPU out of the break with the momentum as he five points in a 13-0 run to take a 56-48 lead with 16:15 left on the clock. The teams traded points for more than 10 minutes, until struggles from the free-throw line opened the door for the Penguins as Xavier Williams found Romeo Mays cutting down the middle of the paint for a dunk to make it 68-64 with four minutes remaining.

Sam Averbuck made a pull-up jumper from the free-throw line as the game neared the final minute to cut the lead to 70-69, but Coleman collected an offensive rebound after his own shot was blocked and made the follow-up to retake a three-point advantage with 50 seconds remaining. Williams knocked down his own pull-up jumper with 34 seconds remaining and FPU called a timeout to regroup for an important possession. Dominican decided to foul out of the timeout and Antunez knocked down both free throws to seal the game.