SAN RAFAEL, Calif.- Dominican men's basketball opened conference play by welcoming in No. 13 ranked Point Loma Thursday night. The Penguins defense came to play making things tough on the Sea Lions, but Point Loma would pull away in the second half for a 69-56 victory.

Redshirt sophomore Jaayden Bush led the Penguins in this one dropping a season best 22 points while going an efficient 6 for 7 from the charity stripe. Nathan Ilunga finished the night second on the team in scoring with nine points to go along with five rebounds. Ilunga has been tough to stop this year with his sky hook when he gets position down low, and tonight was no different.

When hosting a ranked team, a fast start is crucial, and the Penguins were able to do that. Jorge Ochoa got the scoring started when he scored on a smooth jumper. A dunk by Sargent Jeffery and a couple free throws from Bush and the Penguins found themselves with an early lead. Point Loma started to hit buckets late in the first half and took an eight-point lead into half.

The Penguins love to attack down low and in the second half they found some success. A couple nice layups from Bush and another dunk from Jeffery cut the deficit down to two in the second half.

However, the story in this one was turnovers and bench points. Dominican's offense couldn't find much of a rhythm against Point Loma and one reason was due to not holding onto the ball. The Penguins had 18 turnovers on offense which led to some easy fast break buckets for the Sea Lions. The Sea Lions also won the bench battle with theirs scoring 29 points.

Dominican will be back in action this Saturday Dec. 7^th as they host APU at 3:30 p.m.