Kingsmen Blast Beavers in Road Win

Knudsen continues to impress early in SCIAC season

Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008 12:35 am

PASADENA, Calif. – The California Lutheran University men’s basketball team rolled to a 79-57 road win over Caltech on Saturday night at the Braun Athletic Center. Sophomore Kyle Knudsen tied his career-high with 25 points with 22 coming in the opening half helping the Kingsmen cruise to victory.

Every active player saw action, 10 of whom netted at least one field goal in the team’s largest margin of victory this season. Knudsen scored the first eight CLU points and sparked a 10-2 Kingsmen run to open the first 4:13 of the game.

Aside from Knudsen and senior guard Chad Aceboni, the other three CLU starters combined for just 12 minutes in the first half as Lucas Gums, Aaron Fisher and Danny Hagen recorded 14 or more minutes each in the opening stanza.

Cal Lutheran led by 15 at the break and extended its lead to as many as 34 points (78-44) with 4:48 remaining in regulation. Caltech made a late push scoring 11 of the game’s final 12 points, but it was too little too late.

Travis Haussler scored seven of his team-high 19 points in Caltech's final run and shot 7-of-10 from the field.

The Kingsmen committed a season-high 28 personal fouls leading to 34 Beaver free throws, 23 of which were converted. CLU also drained a season-best 10 three-pointers on 21 attempts and equaled its season-low of eight turnovers for the third time this year.

In SCIAC action, Knudsen leads the team scoring 17.7 points per game and has connected on all 11 free throws through three games.

Cal Lutheran (12-2, 2-1 SCIAC) will travel to face Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges on Wednesday, January 23 at 7:30 pm.

Box Score: CLU 79, CIT 57 F