The Long Beach City College men's basketball team suffered its fifth straight loss as the Vikings were defeated by visiting Los Angeles Harbor College by a final score of 65-51 in both teams' South Coast Conference opener at the Hall of Champions Gym on Wednesday night.

The loss dropped Long Beach to 5-10 overall and 0-1 in the SCC while Harbor improved to 5-8 and 1-0.

A dismal first half shooting by the Vikings put them in a big hole that they couldn't get out of in the second. Long Beach made just six of 24 shots in the first and trailed 33-19 at halftime.

Harbor continued to pound the ball underneath in the second half. The Seahawks put together an 11-4 run to take its biggest lead of the game at 24 points (54-30) with 9:59 left in the contest.

But a deep three-pointer by LBCC sophomore Tyler Tuliau halted the Harbor scoring streak and started a late Viking rally.

LBCC rolled to a 7-1 run and outscored Harbor 20-3 over an eight-minute span. Sophomore Ashton Edwards' layup at the 1:40 mark got Long Beach within nine points at 59-50, but the Vikings would get no closer.

Edwards led Long Beach with 13 points while freshman Mewlu Matayu (pictured, left) totaled 11 points and seven rebounds.

Harbor had four players score in double figures with Landon Brown leading the way with 14 points. Sheldon Blevins came off the bench to score 12 points to go with eight rebounds.

Long Beach returns to action on Friday (Jan 11) when it travels to face Cerritos College at 5 p.m. in a South Coast Conference game played at Cal Poly Pomona.

Photo by John Fajardo