Eagles Drop Thriller in Overtime

The MSJC men's basketball team came up just short in overtime on Monday night as they lost to Chaffey 110-102 in an IEAC match up. (Elijah McKnight-MSJC)
The MSJC men's basketball team came up just short in overtime on Monday night as they lost to Chaffey 110-102 in an IEAC match up. (Elijah McKnight-MSJC)

The MSJC men's basketball team suffered a heart wrenching loss at home on Monday night as they fell to Chaffey 110-102 in overtime.

The Eagles trailed by nine 45-36 at halftime and fell behind by as much as 13 in the game before a late push evened the game after 40 minutes. MSJC rallied from a 58-45 deficit with 14:42 left in the game to take a brief 82-80 lead with 4:41 remaining. The teams traded baskets over the final four plus minutes with MSJC missing their final shot in regulation with 20 seconds left and the Panthers misfiring with just 4 seconds to play. Regulation ended with the teams tied at 91-91.

Chaffey scored the first basket in overtime and never looked back as they outscored the Eagles 19-11 in the extra period for the 110-102 victory. Uriyah Rojas had an outstanding game for the Panthers finishing the night with a game high 48 points. For the Eagles RJ Dawson led the offense with a season-high 27 points, Elijah Edwards scored 16 while Kameron Manning-Fuimaono added 14 points and 9 assists. Adrian Mosley and James Freeman IV also scored in double figures for MSJC with 13 and 12 points, respectively.

Chaffey improved to 17-4 overall and 9-0 in conference games, MSJC fell to 7-14 overall and 3-6 in the Inland Empire Athletic Conference. MSJC will be back in action Wednesday when they go on the road to play Copper Mountain. Tip-off Wednesday is set for 7 pm.