PORTLAND, Ore. — The Walla Walla Men's Basketball team went on a late second half run, but Warner Pacific was able to deny the comeback and pulled away for an 82-70 Cascade Conference win on Thursday.

The Wolves (0-10, 0-4) went on a 6-0 run with five minutes to go to cut the Knights' lead to seven before Warner Pacific (5-6, 1-2) regained control and made its free throws down the stretch.

Jordan Jackson had his ninth consecutive double-digit point performance with 19 points. Chike Ezeonu added 16 points and 11 rebounds and Soren Dalan finished with 11 points.

Jurrien Sparks led three Warner Pacific players who reached the 20-point mark with a 24 point performance with four 3-pointers. Jevon Blackmore had 23 points and Chad Napoleon added 20 points in the win. Terrin Dickey led the Knights with 10 boards.

The Wolves scored more than half of their points inside with 38 points in the paint. WWU was just 2-of-11 from beyond the arc and 10-of-19 from the free throw line. Walla Walla used 13 offensive boards to score 13 second chance points and battled to a tie in the rebound battle 39-39.

Warner Pacific worked in the paint all game long with 52 points inside and had 17 assists on 33 made field goals. The Knights shot 47.8% from the field and forced 18 turnovers, scoring 20 points off of those opportunities, that really made the difference in the contest.

The first 10 minutes of the game was an even battle between the two CCC opponents. The home team held the lead for the majority of that span, but could never expand the gap larger than four points. Zeke Virtudes gave Walla Walla its first lead with 12:13 left in the first half with a layup for a 20-18 advantage.

It was a one point lead for WPU with 4:50 remaining in the first half, but the Knights went on a 12-5 run to finish the half and went to the locker room with an eight point gap.

Warner Pacific started the second half strong and built the lead to 17 in just over four minutes and maintained that gap until the Wolves late run. Dalan made a layup with 3:38 to go to push WWU within seven, but Walla Walla did not score again until JT Fenz made a jumper with 14 seconds left.

UP NEXT

The Wolves return home in January with a conference game against No. 20 Oregon Tech at 2 p.m. on Jan. 2.

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