No. 8/12 Men’s Basketball Falls to Imperial Valley’s Buzzer Beater Performance

The No. 12/8 Long Beach City College men's basketball team fell in their home opener to Imperial Valley College 82-81 to a buzzer beater tip-in in the Hall of Champions. The Vikings and the Arabs tied the one another nine different times and had seven lead changes throughout the game. With the tough loss, the Vikings fall to 9-2 overall.

The Vikings and Imperial Valley were neck-in-neck from the beginning of the first half with being scoreless for the first two and a half minutes of the game. Finally sophomore guard Jamiu Akinbile hit a three pointer to put the Vikings on the board. In the first half, Akinbile led with 11 points and four rebounds. Sophomore Jeremiah Sadler led the team with four assists in the frist half. The Vikings pulled through the first half with the 42- 59 lead.

In the second half of the game, sophomore guard Jordan Heard was first to the basket to extend the Vikings lead 44-39. Imperial Valley then tied the game with back-to-back shots, but then Akinbile was next up to hit a jumper to take back to the lead.

With one minute left in the game, the Arabs trailed the Vikings by four points. After they hit a pair of free throws, Heard scored two more points to extend the Vikings lead 81-78. Imperial Valley took a timeout and returned to the court to score two more points with ten seconds left in the game to close in on the Vikings 81-80.Then, they stole back the ball from Long Beach and hit the tip-in at the buzzer to take the 82-81 win away from the Vikings.

Freshmen guards Jace Bass and Kester Ofoegbu each totaled 16 points for the Vikings and Ofoegbu led the team with nine rebounds.

The Long Beach City College men's basketball team will return to action in their second home game of the season on Friday, Dec. 14 against Mt. San Antonio College at 7 p.m.