After being down seven with a minute forty left in the game the Tigers won against the Olympians in their home opener at Wheelock Gymnasium with thirty seconds left for a final score of 75-74.
“Well, you know you’re down 7 with a minute and forty to go, we put some guys in that did the job,” head Coach Phillip Mathews said.
San Diego Mesa College started the game off strong, gaining a three-point lead against the Tigers, and making another shot giving them a bigger lead on Nov. 6.
The first half was close with each team fighting to get in the lead, but Riverside just wouldn’t let go of it.
As much as the Olympians tried to catch up, the Tigers were not giving up.
“Man, we never gave up,” point guard Jayden Miller said, “It felt good.”
As Riverside kept their lead, San Diego wasn’t that far behind.
The Tigers were unstoppable as they just kept scoring, the Olympians were trying to come back but the lead was to much to handle, with a score of 37-22.
San Diego wasn’t done yet; they fought hard to catch up and they did somewhat bringing the score to 37-31. The Tigers wouldn’t have it though, ending the first half with a 7-point lead with a score of 42-36.
Miller said, “We just got to come in, execute the game plan, and play better as a team and continue to put a hundred percent effort in it.”
The second half started quite a bit slow. That changed when the Olympians make in two free throws to shorten up the lead the Tigers had.
Riverside is not giving up as they are on a roll with scoring keeping them in the lead by a mile with a score of 52-38.
San Diego wasn’t going to back down, out of nowhere they just kept scoring eventually catching up to the Tigers in this nail bitter game.
The Olympians made a free throw to tie up the game at 56-56, and it went uphill for them as they kept scoring.
San Diego was on fire hitting almost every single shot to hold a 7-point lead against the Tigers with a score of 64-70.
The Tigers were down seven with a minute and ten left leaned on resilience and coaching. The Tigers indeed did not give up as they put 7 points on the board to make the score 70-74.
As San Diego was trying their best to prevent the Tigers from being able to score, they just could not stop them.
“Coming back within 30 seconds left, that was a great feeling,” Guard Christian Warren said. The Tigers made a game winning shot with seconds left to end it.
They won by one point 75-74.
“They kept playing hard, they never gave up and that’s the result,” Mathews said, “We got a big game on Tuesday against Citrus.”
