{"id":52884,"date":"2025-11-14T11:29:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T11:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/52884\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T11:29:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T11:29:15","slug":"mens-basketball-falls-just-short-at-pacific-69-66-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/52884\/","title":{"rendered":"Men\u2019s Basketball Falls Just Short At Pacific 69-66"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>STOCKTON, Calif. \u2013 A lockdown defensive effort in the first half and a strong night from freshman <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/gavin-sykes\/9440\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9440\" target=\"_blank\">Gavin Sykes<\/a> gave Long Beach State an opportunity on the road, but Pacific was able to hold off as a final effort from Sykes in the closing seconds missed in a 69-66 defeat in the road.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLong Beach State (0-3) led for over 25 minutes in the contest on the road against Pacific (2-1) as the Beach got off to a great start defensively. Holding the Tigers to just ten points over the first ten minutes, <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/shaquil-bender\/9429\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9429\" target=\"_blank\">Shaquil Bender<\/a> caught a hot streak as Long Beach State built a lead, as Bender scored eight straight to kick off an 11-1 run to take a 21-11 lead, and the Beach remained on top 30-25 at halftime behind 11 first half points from the Manhattan transfer.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nA Sykes 3-pointer put Long Beach State back up by 11 early in the second half, and the Beach would maintain a double-digit lead with just over 12 minutes remaining the second half. A three-point play from <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/isaiah-lewis\/9438\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9438\" target=\"_blank\">Isaiah Lewis<\/a> kept the Beach on top by six at 54-48, but an ice-cold stretch for Long Beach State followed to bring the Tigers back into the game. Not scoring for nearly five minutes allowed the Tigers to go on a 10-0 run and pull in front 58-54 with just over four minutes remaining.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nBattling back, Long Beach State tied the game at 58-58, but a crucial offensive rebound for Pacific on a missed second free throw led to a three from Kajus Kublickas to give the Tigers their largest lead of the game.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nAnswering back with a four-point play from Sykes, Long Beach State got a steal and a basket in the closing minutes to give themselves a chance, but a final try from Sykes in the corner to send the game into overtime missed and Pacific held on for the win.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nSkyes scored in double-figures for the second straight game, becoming the first player on the current team to score 20 points in the young season. Lewis added 14 and Bender finished with 13 on the night. Sykes also added seven rebounds, sharing the lead with <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/petar-majstorovic\/9439\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9439\" target=\"_blank\">Petar Majstorovic<\/a> who added six points and four steals.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nAfter three games on the road, Long Beach State now returns to the Walter Pyramid for their home opener, hosting Illinois State on ESPN+ Sunday, November 16 at 4 p.m.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STOCKTON, Calif. \u2013 A lockdown defensive effort in the first half and a strong night from freshman Gavin&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-52884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}