In the span of one week, the Cougars fought their way through three consecutive overtime games, finally securing a win against the Humboldt State LumberJacks on Dec. 3.

The Cougars snapped a three-game losing streak against Azusa Pacific (66-72), BYU-Hawaii (86-88) and Chaminade (109-110) with their 89-74 rally against the Lumberjacks.

This win marked the Cougars’ inaugural CCAA conference game.

“We won a close game [whereas] we didn’t win in Hawaii,” Head Coach Jim Saia said.

The first half opened in the Cougars favor. Junior Tanner Waldrip won the tip off and sunk a three pointer. On the next possession, fellow junior Andrew Bournes put three more points on the board.

Senior Declan Daly led the charge in the first half, leading the Cougars in scoring and capitalizing on 8 of 12 attempts. His bench-clearing dunk in close quarters marked him as a dominant threat. “Declan really saved us a lot,” senior Taran Brown said.

Despite Daly’s push from inside the paint, the team only made 27 percent of their two-point attempts in the first half and trailed 29-40 heading into the locker room.

“Our offense was very stagnant [in the first half],” Saia said. “The way to pick up your pace is through your defense, so we had decided on a full court man pressure in the second half, which loosened everything up.”

As the offense spread out, their scoring increased tremendously. In the first half they made 27 percent of two point attempts; that increased to 47 percent. Their three-point accuracy, which hovered around 20 percent in the first half, jumped up to 57 percent.

With full court pressure, the Cougars were able to get their first two fast breaks of the night.

They also racked up steals by five different players: Bournes, Waldrip, Brown, Daly and Devin Koeplin. “We got some easy buckets off our defense [in the second half] so it wasn’t everything relying on our half court offense,” Saia said.
Eight minutes into the second half, the Cougars came alive as Brown sank 2 three-pointers to set off a scoring frenzy.

Junior Collin Host went in for a successful layup, followed by three-pointers from Brown and Koeplin and another layup by Darnell Taylor.

Bournes’ three-pointer brought the score to 64-60 and in the span of five minutes, the Cougars accumulated 22 points. This gave them lead for the first time in 17 minutes.

With two minutes remaining, the Cougars were down 71-72. They had a chance to end the game there, but failed to execute. Taylor missed a free throw and Daly got the rebound, but Akachi Okugo’s shot attempt was just short.

As the clock ticked down, the Cougars stuck to the game plan. “We focused on executing down the stretch and getting the ball to [top scorer] Darnell Taylor,” Saia said.

When it mattered most, Taylor came through with a layup to tie the game, to which his teammates exclaimed “It’s Darnell time!”

Once again, Cal State San Marcos found themselves tied with Humboldt State the fifth time and heading into overtime. “We weren’t going to lose again,” Brown said.

Daly’s jump shot late in overtime put the Cougars ahead 81-79 and the Lumberjacks never scored again.

“All our kids fought,” Saia said. As Daly put it, “everyone did their part. It’s honestly a team win.”