LA JOLLA, Calif. - Kevin Atkins scored a game-high 31 points and Zac Tiedeman finished with 20 to lead a hot-shooting Humboldt State squad to an 87-79 victory over UC San Diego in the final game of the regular season on Friday night at RIMAC Arena. The Tritons closed to within 77-73 with two and a half minutes remaining, but the Lumberjacks scored the next seven to put the game away.
UCSD's season comes to a close at 8-17 overall and 7-15 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association. The Tritons entered the final week of the season having won four of their last six, but fell out of postseason contention with a 70-57 loss to Sonoma State on Wednesday, before falling to the Lumberjacks on Friday.
Humboldt State wrapped up the regular season with an overall record of 21-6 and went 18-4 in the CCAA to finish tied with Cal Poly Pomona atop the league standings. The Lumberjacks earned the No. 2 seed in next week's CCAA Tournament and will host No. 7 Sonoma State on Tuesday night in the first round.
Christian Hatch finished with 18 points and seven rebounds to lead the Tritons, while the senior duo of Tyler Acevedo and Jordan Lawley finished with 16 and 14, respectively. Hatch dropped 8-of-11 shots from the field and scored14 points in the second half. Acevedo went 5-for-11 overall and connected on 4-of-10 from behind the three-point line, while Lawley finished 4-of-12.
Atkins scored 21 points in the first half, helping the Lumberjacks take a 51-43 lead after the first 20 minutes. The senior forward was 12-of-17 from the floor and 2-of-4 from the arc to lead all scorers and also tallied a game-high nine rebounds. Tiedeman finished 4-of-10 from the field and 10-of-11 at the free throw line, while dishing out four assists. Kyle Baxter tallied 10 points and eight boards off the bench.
The Tritons shot 67% in the first half and held an early 11-6 lead, but the Lumberjacks were even hotter, converting 69% of their shots in the opening period.
Humboldt took a 32-25 lead on a three-point play by Atkins with eight minutes remaining in the period and Tiedeman's triple with 5:21 left made it 42-31 in favor of the visitors. The Lumberjacks led by 13 (51-38) following a layup from Colt Mathews with less than two minutes to play in the period, but Acevedo sank a triple and Casey Ryan converted on a nice feed from Justin Brue to cut the deficit to just eight at the break.
Humboldt opened the second half on an 11-4 run to take its biggest lead at 62-47, but UCSD would climb all the way back to within four with 2:24 left to play. Dylan Bohanan and Hatch sandwiched four free throws around another Acevedo three, as the Tritons used a 7-1 spurt to get back in the game.
Unfortunately, UCSD came up empty on its next four trips and HSU scored 10 of the final 16 points to sew things up.
"Just the fact that we competed and had a great effort, especially in the second half, speaks to our continued improvement,' head coach Chris Carlson said. "We made it hard on a team that's going to the NCAA Tournament, made them work for the result. With that said, there's a lot of work ahead of us. We have a lot of potential and you can see the promise - but it's going to take a lot of work to reach it."
The Lumberjacks shot 54% (27-50) for the game, while the Tritons finished just under 54% (29-54).
