The Wildcats hosted the San Francisco Gators Thursday night at Acker Gymnasium. It was a game that looked like a blowout at several points early on but ended up coming right down to the wire.
It ended with the Wildcats unable to complete the comeback and falling by four points to a score of 74-70.
Senior forward Marvin Timothy lamented, for the ‘Cats’, tonight’s game was a case of too little too late.
“We just gotta play a complete game, all forty minutes. First half we weren’t playing well honestly, we weren’t diving for loose balls, or communicating as a team, just weren’t playing good basketball in the first half.”
Despite the loss, the Wildcats can be proud of how they hung together and competed down the final stretch of the game.
“Second half we turned it up and started playing as a team. If we had played in the first half as we did in the second half, we probably would have had different results. In this league you can’t turn it on and turn it off, it has to be a complete game and we didn’t have a complete game.”
Unselfish play was the theme of the night, with three Wildcats hitting double digits in the scoring column and rebounding contributions coming from across the board. Despite them not being his focus tonight Timothy found himself with a team-high seven boards.
“Rebounds weren’t really a focus for me, it’s more just one of those things that come from playing hard and that’s just something I try and do every night.”
Three of Timothy’s seven boards came from relentless pounding on the offensive glass.
“Getting a team-high in rebounds just comes as a result of playing hard, crashing the glass and bringing intensity.”
Timothy will look to bring that relentless intensity in Saturday nights game as the Wildcats host the Seawolves of Sonoma State. Given the cats’ current record they would need a good deal of help to sneak into the CCAA tournament at the end of the season. So for seniors such as Timothy, it’ll be their last chance to leave everything they’ve got on the floor whilst wearing a Chico State jersey.
Noah Andrews can be reached at [email protected] or @SPORTSFROMNOAH1 on Twitter.
