SAN FRANCISCO — Dominican men's basketball was unable to overcome a slow start offensively in a 68-57 loss to San Francisco State in the final game of the PacWest/CCAA Challenge at The Swamp. 

Freshman Jorden Josephs led the Penguins with his second consecutive double-double, this time of 22 points and 11 rebounds. Senior graduate transfers Michael Diaz and Justin Brown scored 10 and 8 points respectively. The teams shot similar percentages in the game, but the difference came from behind the arc where the Gators knocked down nine 3-pointers while the Penguins finished with two makes from distance.

Both teams started slowly in the opening minutes, but the Gators then went on a 10-2 run as Toby Okwuokei knocked down their first 3-pointer before driving the lane for a layup to extend an early lead to 15-7. Hoping to get the offensive flow going again, senior Michael Diaz hit a 3-pointer of his own to change the momentum and sophomore Adam Parker capped the 8-2 run with a layup to get Dominican back in the game trailing 20-16. 

The threes continued to fall for SFSU as Travis August hit two 3-pointers to bookend an 8-2 run that pushed the lead to 10 with 5:53 remaining in the half. After the Gators pushed their lead to 16, freshmen Jake Blazona attacked the basket to go to the line for a pair of free throws and Josephs rejected a layup attempt on the other end and drew a foul to close the gap to 38-25 at the half.

The Penguins had a stronger start to the second half with an alley-oop from Blazona to Brown. Brown then stole the ball and Parker laid it up to start a run for the Penguins. Josephs showed his strength with an offensive rebound and put-back to get Dominican back in the game and then continued to attack the basket resulting in three makes from the charity stripe to cap the 9-point run to close the gap to 41-34 with 15 minutes left on the clock. SF State struggled to respond to the aggressive Dominican defense as Josephs came away with a steal and layup attempt on the other end to keep the game within single digits. Jalen Chandler finally broke the Penguin momentum as he knocked down a midrange jumper and then followed up with a big 3-pointer to retake a double-digit lead at 59-47 with 7:25 left on the clock. 

The Gators slowly pushed their lead to 16 and the clock ran out on a Penguin comeback in the closing minutes of the game. Following the conclusion of the final game, Parker was named to the all-tournament team for his 18 point performance against Sonoma State.

Dominican will take the court again traveling to Hayward to take on Cal State East Bay on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. PST.