Malika Andrews |
Alec Wintering caught the ball in the far right corner of the court and shot faked a Pacific defender, trying to draw a foul. As an orange jersey flew at him and he was falling out of bounds, Wintering chucked the ball up, on a whim, hoping to seal a victory in Portland’s final home game of the season.
The ball went up and over the basket, circled the rim, and dropped in, bringing the Chiles Center crowd to its feet.
“You could say I was proud of myself,” Wintering said, clucking after the game.
Wintering led all scorers with 27 points as the Pilots defeated the Pacific Tigers 80-67 on Saturday night. Senior Bryce Pressley, who was coming off a 25-point performance against St. Mary’s on Thursday to become the 39th player in Pilot history to score 1,000 career points, scored 15 points in his home finale.
"Walking off the court tonight, it really hit me," Pressley said. "This is my last time I get to walk off this court. Coming up with a win was huge. It was really nice just ending it with a win."
Alec Kobre led the Tigers with 12 points. Ray Bowled and David Taylor both added 11 points.
Portland struggled from the field, shooting only 43 percent and going 8-of-21 from deep. The Pilots’ gained an advantage from the charity stripe, finishing the game 30-of-32 from the free throw line. Pacific knocked down only 9 out of its 20 free throw attempts.
“Down there (in Stockton, Calif.), we put them to the line 34 times," Assistant coach Colin Pfaff said. "And then tonight, we shot 32 free throws. And we made our free throws which was great."
Sophomore D’Marques Tyson was fouled on a 3-point shot from just past half court with 2:20 remaining in the first half. The ball swished in and Tyson fell to the ground grinning and holding up three fingers on his left hand.
Tyson completed the four-point play to give the Pilots a 38-31 advantage. At the half, Portland led the Tigers 42-33.
Alec Kobre cut Portland’s once 16-point lead to seven off a right winged 3-pointer with just over 8:30 remaining. Kobre fouled out of the game less than a minute later.
After Portland built up a 12-point lead, Pacific capitalized on back-to-back turnovers from Portland to cut their lead to eight again. That is as close as Pacific would get.
Both Pilot seniors appeared in the starting lineup tonight. Pressley, a three-year starter is averaging a career-best 13.4 points per game this season. This was Livingston’s third start of the season.
The Pilots and the Tigers entered the game with a record of 5-10 in conference play. With the win, Portland improves to 6-10 in conference and secure to No. 7 seed in the WCC standing. They are still able to make a push for the sixth-place seeding depending on next week’s results. In the seventh seed, they will avoid Friday night’s play-in game and will play in the first round of Saturday of the tournament.
The Tigers have voluntarily withdrawn from playing in the tournament due to NCAA violations. Head coach Ron Verlin was suspended in December because alleged academic misconduct.
Portland will finish up their season next week on the road against BYU on Feb. 25 at 8 p.m. and San Diego on Feb. 27 for a 6 p.m. tipoff.
Malika Andrews is the sports editor for The Beacon. She can be reached at andrewsm17@up.edu or on Twitter @malika_andrews.
