Christina Carter

ULV freshman guard Brian Mancilla makes his move past Zeeshan Hydner, a junior from Pomona-Pitzer, toward the basket during the first half of Thursday night’s game. In their final attempt to finish the season strong, the Leopards suffered a tough loss of 72-77, bringing their season to a close with a record of 4-10 in conference and 5-20 overall.

Keisha Clay
Staff Writer

The University of La Verne lost its final men’s basketball game of the 2006-2007 season,
77-72, to the third ranked team in the Southern California Intercollegiate Conference, the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens.

The game was Feb. 22 at the Frantz Athletic Court. This was the second lost of the week for the Leopards, on Feb. 19; they lost to the Occidental Tigers, 85-54, in Eagle Rock.

By the end of the first half, Pitzer led the Leopards, 37-30.

In the second half, the Leopards entered more focused and ready.
Junior forward Robert Hughes was so focused, that he lost a shoe while scoring a lay up.

Hughes ultimately dunked the basket which finally put the Leopards ahead of the Sagehens momentarily, 59-57.

The Leopards held the rebound edge over the Sagehens 45-44, and also had fewer turnovers than the Sagehens, eight to their 12.

Despite the Leopards’ efforts, they still were not able to hold the Sagehens down for the res of the game.

“I wish we could have sent the seniors off with a win. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way,” said Kyle Luhnow a sophomore power forward from San Diego.

ULV’s senior point guard, Jamel Brown of Brooklyn, N.Y., finished the game by leading his team in scoring with a total of 12 points.

This was his Brown’s final game as a Leopard, but the reality of never playing with his teammates again has not hit him yet.

“Everyone definitely played hard and put their A-game forward, it just wasn’t enough,” Brown said. “We had our ups and downs started out with 20 [players] and ended up with 10.”

“I really had fun, I wish we could have done better,” said Billy Nicolini, a freshman guard from Novato. “We played hard.”

Nicolini along with freshman Brandon Cunningham and junior Drew Terry finished Thursday’s game with 10 points a piece.

“We don’t believe in moral victories, we came out played hard even though we came up short, we are going to come back stronger next year,” said James Daniel, a junior forward from Riverside. “We had a young team with a lot of talent.”

Keisha Clay can be reached at kclay@ulv.edu.