Despite getting a 15-point deficit to as low as two, Air Force was unable to keep up with Cal and fell to the Golden Bears 78-69 in their first road game of the season.
Sophomore Luke Kearney had a career-high 14 points off of 5 for 9 shooting while Ethan Taylor had 23 points on 9 for 13 shooting, 5 of 8 from the three-point line. The Falcons shot 51%, or 26-of-5, from the field and Cal shot 53.8%, or 28 of 53. The Golden Bears scored 23 points off of 16 Air Force turnovers.
Cal's Rytis Petraitis, Air Force's star player who transferred last year, scored 12 points, three rebounds and two assists.
It was the third loss of the season for the Falcons (1-4), but coach Joe Scott is proud of how Air Force stayed in the game against a tough opponent.
"We got to learn how to do it every game," coach Scott said. "The good thing is we are talking about winning and playing to win. Part of those things are mistakes like 10 turnovers in the first half. That's what the process is right now and they are listening ... we have a chance on Sunday to go do it, and that's where we need to keep our focus."
After Air Force scored the first four points of the contest, there were three lead changes and three ties before Cal (4-1) began to run away with the first half, mostly off the Falcon's 10 fouls. The Golden Bears went on a 14-0 run over nearly five minutes to gain a significant 30-15 lead and forced Joe Scott to call a timeout at the 5:14 mark.
Sign Up for Pikes Peak 5 Game analysis and insights from The Gazette sports staff including columns by Woody Paige and Paul Klee.
Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. Featured Local Savings
Kearney scored a 3-pointer out of the timeout to end the scoring drought, followed closely by a Kyle Marshall layup. Air Force found some momentum after that, going on an 8-0 run over two minutes to close the gap to 35-27 at the half.
The Falcons came out with a vengeance in the second half. They started strong, slowly closing in on Cal until two 3-pointers by Taylor in less than a minute left the Golden Bears with a mere 49-47 lead. Taylor would score 18 of his 23 points in the second half.
However, Air Force continued to fall into foul trouble, allowing another Golden Bear 8-0 run and losing Caleb Walker to fouls with eight minutes left to play. Cal had its largest lead of the half at 66-52 after a 7-0 run, capped off by a dunk by Lee Dort.
A dunk by Wesley Celichowski helped bring the score to 76-65, but a personal foul on Taylor gave Cal a double-digit lead once again. The Falcons couldn't respond and the Golden Bears got their fourth win of the season.
Air Force's returns home on Sunday for a matchup against Mercyhurst at 2 p.m. MT as part of the Cal Classic MTE.