PORTLAND, Ore. – Kristian Sjolund scored a career-high 20 points and Mike Meadows made a pair of clutch free throws in the closing seconds as the Portland Pilots defeated the Cal Poly Mustangs 78-77 Monday night at the Chiles Center.
The Pilots (8-3) kicked off a stretch of four games in seven days with a thriller that featured 12 ties and 13 lead changes and wasn't decided until the final buzzer.
Meadows converted a pair of free throws with eight seconds left and then the Pilots were able to get a final defensive stop to secure the win. Cal Poly's Jacob Davison, who played for Portland head coach Shantay Legans the last four years at Eastern Washington, had his runner rim off and Alimamy Koroma corralled the offensive rebound, but was stripped by Moses Wood on his putback attempt as the Pilots escaped with the victory.
Sjolund made his first start of the season and delivered by going 6-for-11 from the field including 5-for-10 from three point range. He added four rebounds and did not commit a turnover in 32 minutes of action.
Tyler Robertson scored 13 of his 16 points in the second half and added seven assists. He made big plays down the stretch knocking down four free throws and assisting on a big Sjolund three-pointer in the final two minutes.
Meadows finished with an efficient 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting and Chris Austin added 12 points, four rebounds and four assists.
Trevon Taylor finished with a career-high 27 points for the Mustangs (3-7) and Davison added 17 points.
The first half was back-and-forth and featured six ties and six lead changes. Portland led by as much as six and the Mustangs by three in the period before Chris Austin beat the buzzer with a layup to make it 37-37 at the half.
The second period followed a similar pattern as the largest lead was six by Cal Poly early in the half. The Mustangs either had the lead or were tied from the 10:11 mark of the half until Sjolund's step-back triple with 1:38 left gave Portland a 74-73 edge.
Taylor and Robertson traded free throws and then Cal Poly got a steal and layup from Brantly Stevenson with less than 30 seconds left in regulation to set up the final sequence.
The Pilots drilled 11-of-25 three-pointers and converted 17-of-19 free throws on the night. Cal Poly finished at 52 percent overall and had a 28-22 advantage in the paint. Portland committed just nine turnovers and had 17 assists.
Portland will continue play this week with a road game at Oregon on Wednesday at 6 p.m. on the Pac-12 Network before returning home to host San Jose State on Friday at 6 p.m. on Portland's CW (KRCW-TV). Tickets for that game are available by visiting PortlandPilots.com/Tickets.
The team closes out non-conference play with road games at Montana State (Dec. 19) and UC Davis (Dec. 22). All Pilot games will have live radio coverage on 910 ESPN Portland (KMTT).