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By Jack Brancheau

LOS ANGELES — The Occidental men's basketball team cruised past Redlands 89-69 at Rush Gym on Tuesday, clinching the No. 2 seed in the SCIAC Postseason Tournament and capping Oxy's best season in nearly a decade. 

The Tigers finish the season 19-6 overall, 12-4 in the SCIAC and will host Pomona-Pitzer at Rush Gym on Friday at 7 p.m. in the team's first home playoff game since 2008. The conference tournament determines the automatic bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs. 

Austin DeWitz and Zach Baines both had monster nights in the final regular season game of their junior years. Dewitz put up 26 points on 10 of 16 shooting, grabbed 9 boards, and racked up 8 assists. Baines added another 24 points, 8 rebounds, and a thundering two-handed dunk early in the second half. Caleb Yellin-Flaherty played well again, scoring 16 points and grabbing 9 rebounds. Ryan Kaneshiro had six points and two assists, and Jacob Adler hit a pair of threes for 6 points.

Oxy started out red hot from the field with Baines scoring the first 8 points of the game and 20 of his 24 in the first half. Dewitz had a big half with 16 points and Yellin-Flaherty added 12 of his own.

Oxy started off the game strong on both sides of the ball - shooting a ridiculous 62% from the field and out rebounding Redlands by 7 in the first half. The Tigers finished the half up 53-34. 

The second half saw much of the same for the Tigers - an unrelenting man-on-man defense and tremendous ball movement that would help them extend their margin of victory to 20 points.

Oxy won comfortably enough to clear the bench, with all of its suited players getting a run.

Oxy's calling card this season has been its defense. Coming into the game, the Tigers were the only team in the country ranked in the top-10 in NCAA Division III for FG percentage defense, 3-point FG percentage defense and scoring defense. 

The Tigers celebrated their only senior, Ian Bonde, in Tuesday night's victory. The senior played one of his best games of the year - scoring six points, grabbing two rebounds, and dishing out two assists in 15 minutes of work. Bonde, a star wide receiver on the football team, contributed an unmatched work ethic and a much-needed senior presence in his first and only year with the basketball team. In three years with the Oxy football team, he caught 70 passes for more than 900 yards and nine touchdowns. 

Looking Ahead: The #2 Tigers will host #3 Pomona-Pitzner at Rush Gymnasium this Friday at 7PM. This will be the Tigers first home play off game in ten years. # 1 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps will host # 4 Chapman in the other semifinal on Friday.