MONMOUTH, Ore.—Up by 20 with nine minutes remaining, the Western Oregon University men's basketball team escaped with a 70-69 win over Point Loma University after a game winner by the Sea Lions rattled off the rim on Friday evening.

The bout represented the season opener for Western Oregon while Point Loma fell to 1-2 on the season with the result at the GNAC/PacWest Challenge. The GNAC's Saint Martin's University defeated Fresno Pacific, 95-79, in the opening game of the tournament.

The second day of action will begin at 5 p.m. on Saturday with SMU facing PLU. Western Oregon will entertain Fresno Pacific at 7:30 p.m. inside the New P.E. Building .

With the boost of the first two buckets, the visiting Sea Lions of Point Loma owned the majority of the opening half. PLU went up by seven points on two separate occasions before the break, the second occurrence following a Preston Beverly layup at the 5:55 mark for a 27-20 spread.

The Wolves held the Sea Lions to three points down the stretch and tied the game at 30-30 on a Dustin Triano drive with a touch over a minute to play.

Extending the momentum into the second half, WOU snared its first lead with 18:26 remaining via a pair of makes from the free throw line by Triano. 

Now playing with a lead, WOU's defense ratcheted up the pressure with six steals in the second half, two of which resulted in fast-break runs by Darius Luborn.

Vince Boumann connected from down low with 9:09 remaining to extend the advantage to 64-44, but the Sea Lions used an 11-point run capped by 1 4-pointer by Tanner Nelson to make it a single-digit deficit.

Still working with more than four minutes on the clock, Point Loma cut the lead to three (70-67) on two more Beverly free throws. After a stop on the defensive end, Tanner Nelson stepped to the line for the Sea Lions and drained both attempts, giving PLU a perfect 15-for-15 exchange at the charity stripe in the second half.

A foul sent the Wolves to the line for a 1-and-1, but a miss on the front end provided the road squad a chance for a game winner where Josh Rodriguez drove down the length of the court for the last-second layup attempt.

Rodriguez' attempt bounced off the glass and circled around the rim before finally caroming away to preserve the WOU win.

Luborn led WOU with 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting, including 3-of-3 from beyond the arc. Triano ended the night with 12 points while Riley Hawken chipped in with nine points and a team-high nine boards.

Beverly led all scorers with 24 points and was followed by 15 from Nelson and 10 from Sterling Somers.