Augustas Marciulionis recorded 25 points and seven assists to lead No. 23 Saint Mary’s to a 74-64 victory over Oregon State on Saturday evening in the West Coast Conference Play at Moraga, Calif.
Fellow Senior’s Lake Barrett (13 points, 10 Returns) and Mitchell Saxen (12 points, 11 returns) made important contributions when Gaels (27-4, 17-1 WCC) closed the regular season with his seventh victory in a row.
Saint Mary’s is the total seed for the upcoming WCC tournament. Oregon State will be No. 5 seed.
Parsa Fallah scored 14 points for Beaverers (20-11, 10-8), which lost his second straight match.
Liutauras Lelevicius added 12 points and eight returns and Michael Rataj also got 12 points for Oregon State.
A three-point game by Damarco Minor and a basket of Rataj allowed the beavers to crawl within 68-64 with 1:08 left.
However, Paulius Murauskas drilled a 3-pointer with 42.9 seconds left and Jordan Ross struck three out of four free throw to squeeze the lead to 10 with 20.9 seconds left when Gaels closed it out.
Saint Mary shot 40.4 percent from the field, including 9 out of 22 from 3-point intervals. Gaels had a dominant 39-22 rebounding edge while completing a regular season sweep of Oregon State.
The beaves made 47.8 percent of their shots and were 3 out of 12 behind the bow. Nate Kingz (knee) set out for Oregon State.
Barrett scored five points in a row to give Gaels a lead of 47-39 with 14:10 left in the match.
Oregon State quickly tightened it on 3-score by Josiah Lake II and Isaiah Sy.
Still, Barrett replied with a Trey to give Saint Mary’s a lead of 50-45 with 12:44 left in the match.
Almost three minutes later, Marciulionis knocked in a 3-pointer to give Gaels an advantage of 55-49.
The beaves were within two before Saint Mary’s got the next nine points. The scissors’ layout was the lonely field target during the span when Gaels took a lead of 64-53 with 4:35.
Murauskas drilled a 3-point with six seconds left in the first half when Saint Mary’s had a lead of 34-33 at the break.
Marciulionis got 13 points for the first half for Gaels, while Fallah and Lelevicius each got 10 in half for Oregon State.
-Field level media
