Penguins sweep season series with wire-to-wire win

Dominican tops Dixie State, 105-90

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SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – Dalton Groskreutz (Santa Clara, UT) scored a career-high 25 points on Thursday night, but his stellar individual effort was outshined by a total Dominican team effort. The host Penguins set fire to the nets with 12 3-point shots to defeat Dixie State 105-90 in Pacific West Conference action.

Dominican (19-7/13-5 PacWest) moved into a second-place tie with the Red Storm (19-5/13-5 PacWest), but hold the tiebreaker after taking both games of the season series. It is the first time a DSU opponent has swept two regular season games since BYU-Hawaii in the 2008-09 season.

Groskreutz carried Dixie State in the first half with 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting. His slashing to the bucket and energy kept the Storm from falling further behind. Connor Haysbert of the Penguins was equally strong with 19 of his career-best 29 points in the opening 20 minutes. His effort and seven shots from distance gave Dominican a 52-37 lead at halftime.

The Penguins built their advantage to 21 points midway through the half before Dixie State began to full-court press and jump into the passing lanes for steals. DSU used a 7-0 run beginning with a 3-pointer form DeQuan Thompson (Las Vegas, NV). Kimball Payne (Alpine, UT) sliced into the paint for a lay-in and Robbie Nielson (Gresham, OR) capped the spurt with a jump shot.

Dixie State closed within 13 points of three separate occasions, but Dominican had fast break efforts leading to two dunks from Dominique Taplin to energize the crowd and quell any DSU comeback effort.

The Red Storm shot 47.5 percent from the field while the hosts hit 39-of-68 shots (57.4 percent). Dominican outrebounded the Storm 41-31 and assisted on 21 buckets.

Joining Groskreutz in double figures for Dixie State was Thompson with 14 points, Louis Garrett (Saint George, UT) with 13 and Payne with 12.

Haysbert (10 rebounds) and point guard Myles Carrillo (13/12 assists) each had double doubles for Dominican.

Dixie State closes out its trip to the Bay Area with a Saturday afternoon tip with Academy of Art. The game will be played in the Main Gymnasium on the campus of San Francisco State beginning at 3 p.m. Pacific (4 p.m. Mountain).

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