HONOLULU, Hawaii- Dominican men's basketball ended their Hawaiian road trip with a bang Saturday night as they defeated the Sharks of Hawaii Pacific University 54-52. This victory puts an end to the Pengs four-game skid and hopefully gets them in the right direction heading into the final month of the season.

This was an all-around team win for Dominican as everybody contributed on both ends of the court. DM Sanders led the Pengs in the scoring department going for 10 points and eight rebounds. The team as a whole crashed the boards hard tonight collecting 34 rebounds with Sanders and teammate Nathan Ilunga hauling in eight a piece.

Ilunga and Jordan Archie were second on the team in scoring against the Sharks with both going for nine points. Archie was making life tough for the Sharks defense as they could do nothing but foul him on multiple occasions where he went 4 for 5 from the charity stripe.

Dominican got out to a fast start, something they haven't been doing the last couple of games. This made the Pengs play more freely, and they ended up taking a five-point lead into half as a result. Darius Best turned out one of his best all-around performances of the season against the Sharks as he went for eight points but more impressively, he dished out a game high eight assists. One of his better assists came to end the half when he found a wide open Ilunga who capitalized for a long-range splash.

In the second half, the Penguins defense continued to wreak havoc on the Sharks offense. Coming into this game, opponents thought they could score at ease on the Dominican defense. HPU found out that was wrong. The Pengs stymied the Sharks on the perimeter only allowing their opponent to make five three-pointers out of 24. They would also hold the Sharks to 26% from the field in the second half.

Towards the last seconds of the game things got a little interesting after Thomas Oosterbroek hit some clutch free throws to give Dominican a two-point lead. After a questionable foul call in favor of HPU, the Sharks were headed to the free throw line with nine seconds left down by two. A miss free throw by Jonas Visser and an offensive rebound gave the Sharks another life. Dominican clamped up like they've done all game and forced a tough three at the buzzer which clanked off the backboard to secure the Pengs victory.

Dominican will now travel to cross town rival Academy of Art on Feb. 5^th at 7: 30 p.m.