Jamison Battle returned after missing the first four games with a foot injury and Dawson Garcia’s jumper with five seconds remaining helped the Minnesota Golden Gophers claim a 62-61 overtime victory over Cal Baptist in the SoCal Challenge in San Juan Capistrano, Cali. on Monday night.
Battle’s return was expected to spark the Gophers’ offense but the sophomore struggled in his first game of the season. Battle shot just 4-for-15 from the field and 1-for-8 from 3-point range and finished with 11 points on the night.
The Gophers didn’t seem fazed by Battle’s struggles early, opening the game on a 15-0 run. While the Lancers made things close, Minnesota was able to go into halftime with a 26-18 lead and ran the lead up to as many as 14 points in the second half.
Cal Baptist made its move with just under 10 minutes remaining, going on a 12-3 run to tie the game at 48. The Gophers ran the lead back up to 53-48 on a Braeden Carrington free throw with 1:55 to go but a layup from Hunter Goodrick and a 3-pointer from Taran Armstrong sent the game to overtime.
The Lancers took their first lead of the game on a Joe Quintana layup with 4:16 remaining in overtime and took a 61-58 lead on Quintana’s jumper with 1:25 to go. After Pharrel Payne’s dunk with 58 seconds left, the Gophers forced a stop and found Garcia on the block for the game-winning bucket.
#GOPHERS WIN!!
Dawson Garcia scores with five seconds left! pic.twitter.com/8sLB6FgW1F
— GopherHole.com (@GopherHole) November 22, 2022
Payne led the Gophers with 15 points and 13 rebounds off the bench. Garcia finished with 10 points and four rebounds while Ta’Lon Cooper had eight points, seven rebounds and seven assists in the victory.
Armstrong led the Lancers with 22 points while Quintana had nine points and four assists. Goodrick had seven points and 10 rebounds off the bench.
The Gophers improved to 4-1 and will face UNLV in the tournament title game Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.
