SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- No matter how it's put together, an 11-game winning streak is an accomplishment to be proud of, and No. 22-ranked Azusa Pacific has made it even more impressive by winning nine of those 11 away from home.
Most notable is how easy the Cougars have made it look, capping the pre-Christmas schedule with a 100-75 victory at Academy of Art on the strength of 28 points from senior guard Troy Leaf on just 13 shots from the field, along with a career-high 22-point effort from junior forward Jared Zoller. Zoller also drew a defensive assignment of the Urban Knights' leading scorer Alexis Moore, who committed six turnovers and finished with eight points on two-of-10 shooting from the field.
"This was one of those games where not everybody had a great game, but it was a great team win," Azusa Pacific head coach Justin Leslie said. "The beauty of this team is we have lots of guys who can step up and have an impact on the game. Over the course of a long season, you need everyone on the team to be ready to contribute, and we are blessed with a lot of good players who are willing to sacrifice to put the team in front of themselves."
The 100-point performance was Azusa Pacific's second of the year, and it came against a Pacific West Conference opponent which had only surrendered more than 80 points twice all year heading into Saturday's matchup. The victory gives the Cougars a 12-1 overall record, which includes a perfect 5-0 start in five road games to start conference play. The current 11-game winning streak is tied for the 12th-longest in program history while making the 12-1 start one of the six best 13-game openings to a season.
"I've seen quite a few streaks (at APU), and the only perspective I really have is that the teams that have put streaks like that together are teams that competed for championships," Leslie said. "The streaks start adding up to something good, and ultimately that's what we want to keep working towards. Streaks don't really matter all that much until after the season when you can look back at them. It doesn't mean a whole lot to us moving forward, because we just need to keep learning and improving, which is what this team has been doing up to this point."
Senior point guard Robert Sandoval scored a season-high 19 points, and he sparked his team offensively with a three-pointer followed by a Leaf trey during a game-opening 10-2 run. With under 12 minutes left in the first half, Academy of Art cut the lead to a single point, 15-14, but Leaf scored 14 of his 19 first-half points during a 27-12 run to close out the first half and lead the Cougars to a 42-27 halftime edge.
Sophomore forward Will Ward's layup with 7:05 left in the half gave Azusa Pacific its first double-digit lead, and with 4:29 left in the half junior guard LyDell Cardwell put it there for good with a pair of free throws. Early in the second half, Cardwell and Zoller hit back-to-back three-pointers to give the Cougars their first 20-point lead of the game, and less than three minutes later Zoller knocked down another from three-point range to cap a 13-2 run that resulted in the largest lead of the game, a 27-point margin at 62-35 with 12:35 to play.
Academy of Art, which dropped to 3-6 overall and 1-2 in PacWest play, never got closer than 16 points the rest of the way, as Azusa Pacific drilled 16-of-24 (67 percent) from the field in the second half. That included a blistering eight-of-11 (73 percent) on three-pointers after halftime for a Cougar squad which hit 50 percent overall and on three-pointers in the first half. For the game, Azusa Pacific shot 58 percent, hitting 30-of-52 overall while knocking down a season-high 13 three-pointers for a season-best three-point shooting percentage of .619 (13-for-21).
"Getting through our non-conference schedule the way we did was an amazing stretch where a lot of different guys stepped up," said Leslie, whose team has played all but two games this season away from home against the toughest non-conference schedule in Division II's West Region. "Our schedule really tested the character of this group before we went into conference play for a daunting task with five straight road games. We didn't win the first two games of this trip the way we wanted to, and the guys wanted to play better. We're excited for some home games, but we're in a position at the top of the standings where other teams will give us their best shot. We need to prepare night in and night out knowing our next game is the most important."
Four different Cougars reached double figures in scoring, with Cardwell adding an 11-point effort to Leaf (28), Zoller (22), and Sandoval (19). Sandoval added a game-high six assists and two steals while sharing the team rebounding lead with senior forward Christian Katuala with five boards each to lead the Cougars to a 33-27 rebounding margin. Herman Pratt was Academy of Art's scoring leader, tallying 20 points on eight-of-12 shooting, while Trent Stokes collected 13 points with a team-high six rebounds.
Azusa Pacific returns to action in two weeks, hosting Holy Names on Saturday, Jan. 3 to kick off a set of three consecutive home games as the Cougars host 10 of their final 15 PacWest games.
