Hawks Celebrate the End of 2022 on Game Winning Last Second Shot

The Santiago Canyon College Men's Basketball Team was looking to end 2022 on a winning note in their game at Cerritos College. The Hawks were successful and grabbed an 87-84 victory in a game of runs by both teams. This was the last non-conference game for SCC on the season. They will be back to conference play this coming week. With tonight's win the Hawks are 10-4 on the season.

SCC came out very sluggish in the game, while Cerritos came out hot. The Falcons opened up a 20 points lead by the score of 40-20 at the 7:37 mark in the first half. After several timeouts and adjustments, the Hawks responded with a run of their own and scored 12 straight points to cut the lead to 8, 40-32.  SCC finished the half strong and were only down 46-40 at intermission. Leading the way in scoring for Santiago Canyon was Aaron Wadman with 13 points. Damien Parker chipped in with 9 points and Zach Ibbetson contributed 8 points. The Hawks turned the ball over an uncharacteristic 10 times in the half leading to many transition points for Cerritos. 

With momentum on their side, SCC came out strong in the second half and played consistently for most of it. They built a 10 point lead with 3 minutes to go, but the Falcons had one more run in them. Cerritos scored a basket to tie the game at 84 with 14 seconds to go. Santiago Canyon inbounded the ball and played for the last shot. Wadman drove hard to the basket and kicked it out to Kai Smith who elevated and nailed a 3-pointer with 1.2 seconds left in the game. Cerritos was only able to manage a desperation shot that fell short to end the game. Scoring leaders for SCC were Wadman (21 points), Adam Holod (17 points), Smith (16 points), and Parker (11 points). Wadman led the way in rebounding with 10 boards for another double-double on the season. 

Santiago Canyon College moved up to 9th in the state in the Massey Ratings. They will travel to Santa Ana College on Wednesday, January 4th and then host Fullerton College on Friday, January 6th. Both games have a start time of 6pm. SCC finished 2022 with a 10-4 record and 2-0 in the Orange Empire Conference. They will look to improve on their record as conference play starts back up this week.