IRVINE, California – Four PacWest teams went unbeaten last week as conference play tipped off. The APU Cougars won for the fifth and sixth consecutive times to earn the Team of the Week, beating their two opponents by a combined 49 points. The Defender of the Week is a tall drink of water playing on an island surrounded by water.
DEFENDER OF THE WEEK
NADJRICK PEAT / F/C / Sophomore / 6'11 / Alexandria, Jamaica
Six-foot-11 Nadjrick Peat made his large presence known during road victories over HPU and Chaminade. Peat had a total of six blocked shots and 16 rebounds as the Vulcans began PacWest play 2-0.
He also had 31 points on the offensive end. In the 71-66 win over the Sharks, the former New Mexico Military Institute player had 16 points, 10 rebounds, four blocked shots and one monster dunk on a fastbreak.
The Jamaica-native hit 13 of his 16 shots and leads the PacWest in field goal percentage with sizzling 0.794 marksmanship. He also has a large lead at the top of the blocked shots category with 2.8 per game.
REGIONAL REVIEW
The PacWest now has FIVE of the 11 teams in the D2SIDA West Region poll, announced today (Monday). The list, voted on by a panel of Sports Information Directors (two from each conference) looks like this. (1) Cal State San Bernardino 6-1, (2) Saint Martin's 7-1, (T-3) Azusa Pacific 7-2, (T-3) Western Washington 6-1, (5) Cal Poly Pomona 5-1, (6) Point Loma 6-3, (7) Montana State Billings 6-2, (8) Biola 6-2, (9) Academy of Art 5-3, (T-10) Hawaii Hilo 4-1, (T-10) Seattle Pacific 5-3.
BIG EARLY SEASON GAMES HIGHLIGHT WEEK TWO
Point Loma plays at Biola (Wednesday) and Azuza Pacific (Saturday) in a duo of big December games this week. Concordia will take short trips to APU (Wednesday) and Biola (Saturday), while other Saturday games include Hawaii Pacific at Hawaii Hilo, Chaminade at Academy of Art and Fresno Pacific at Dominican.
PACWEST NEWS AND NOTES
Lance Coleman II was this week's honoree, but the award could have gone to a number of other players as well. Biola's Daniel Esparza had 41 total points in two games as the Eagles edged Fresno Pacific (63-61) and Holy Names (88-79). Eagle teammates Alex Wright totaled 26 points in those two wins and also had 20 rebounds and three steals ... Academy of Art's Will Balata totaled 35 points and 18 rebounds in a pair of tough road losses ... Hawai'i Hilo's Carlos Ramsey had a pair of 20 point games in the Vulcans' island wins over HPU and Chaminade ... Vulcan teammate Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones put up another balanced stat line with 17 points, nine rebounds, six assists and three steals against the Sharks ... In Hilo's overtime win over Chaminade, guard Darren Williams had all 17 of his points after halftime to help his team overcome a 15-point deficit ... APU was balanced as usual in their two victories, but Justin Hemsley stood out in the Cougars' win over the Sunbirds with 29 points, seven rebounds and three steals. He hit 5-of-9 three-point attempts ... Point Loma guard Shamrock Campbell was more than lucky in drilling four 3-pointers and hitting 10 of 13 shots overall in the Sea Lion's big win over Academy of Art ... Dominican's Marcus McCutchen totaled 28 points and 16 rebounds as the Penguins split games last week.
