Los Angeles, Calif.--- SF State's men's basketball team advanced to the semi-finals round of the 2008 CCAA Basketball Championships with a 60-57 win over the Cal State LA Golden Eagles (17-11) this evening at Cal State LA's Eagles Nest. The Gators now will play UC San Diego in the semi-finals of the CCAA Basketball Championships this Friday, March 7 at 5:30pm on the campus of CSU San Bernardino. UC San Diego defeated the #2 seed Cal State San Bernardino 62-57 in overtime this evening in San Bernardino.

            “Martin Flores gave us a tremendous effort to start the second half, Alex Thomas was solid through out and Darryl (Robinson), Derek (Fletcher), and Chris (Rodriguez) battled big on the glass,” said SF State Head Coach Bill Treseler. “For our first time out of the gates in the post-season play, I'm excited about our defensive effort and our poise in crunch time.”

            The Gators (17-11) jumped out to a 15-7 lead in the first nine minutes of the game. SF State increased its lead to ten (24-14) with 4:43 left in the first half, but the Golden Eagles went on a 12-1 run to end the half to take a 26-25 lead into the locker room.

SF State opened the second half on a 20-9 run to take a 45-37 lead on a Martin Flores (Jr, F/C, Woodland, Calif/Solano Junior College) jumper in the first six minutes of the second half. Cal State LA cut the Gator lead to just two (55-53) with 3:34 to go on a Christofer Hart jumper. The Gators went on a 4-0 run to take a 57-53 lead with a little under three minute left in the half.

Cal State LA followed that with a 4-0 run of its own to take to tie the game at 57-57 with just 1:55 to go in the game. The Gators scored the last three points of the game from the line including Chris Rodriguez (Sr, F, San Francisco, Calif/Southern Oregon University) going 2 for 2 and Derek Fletcher (So, F/C, San Jose, Calif/Branham HS) going 1 of 2 to secure the win for the Gators.

Mark finished with 15 points and 17 rebounds to lead the Golden Eagles while Junior Rodriguez added 17 and Christofer Hart chipped in 14. Flores led the Gators with 15 points while Alex Thomas (Jr, G, Vallejo, Calif/Dominican University) had 14 points, three assists, and two steals.

SF State held the Golden Eagles' leading scorer (Vincent Camper) to just seven points including going 1 of 13 from the field while forcing 14 turnovers by Cal State LA.