Feb 28, 2007 By Adam Gretz For The 4 min read

CALIFORNIA – The California men’s and women’s basketball teams took both ends of a PSAC playoff doubleheader Tuesday night as the women pillaged Shippensburg, 79-65, while the men held on for a nail-biter, 67-62, over Clarion. Kim Nowakowski had a monster game for the Vulcans as she registered her fifth consecutive double-double with games high in points – 25 – and rebounds – 14.

As a team, the Vulcans pulled down 46 rebounds and played a fundamentally sound defensive game as they forced 19 Red Raiders turnovers and racked up 14 steals. Bre Dillon accounted for 7 of those takeaways.

Aside from Nowakowski, three other California players tallied double digits in points as Lindsay Johnson, Keris Timol and Brooque Williams combined for 48 on the night.

“We knew that if we put a lot of pressure on them we could force a lot of turnovers,” said head coach Darcie Vincent. “It was one of our first complete games of the season offensively and defensively. I don’t like that we let up in the last four minutes, but we got through it. I thought Keris Timol had a strong game and Kim was tremendous.”

Thanks to the win, California will travel to Millersville on Friday where it will take on East Stroudsburg in the PSAC semifinals.

“It’s not going to be at East Stroudsburg and we get them on a neutral site so I think that is going to be a huge advantage for us,” said Vincent. “Still, I think we tend to play our best basketball when our backs are against the wall.”

In the late game, Kelvin Green led the men’s team with 19 points and a game high 10 rebounds while Osborne Gardner tallied 14 points and pulled down 6 boards.

The victory puts the Vulcans in the PSAC semifinals on Friday night where they will take on Cheyney at Hamer Hall.

Connellsville graduate James Hairston scored 10 points – including another electrifying slam dunk – while picking up 6 rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot. Tuesday was the fifth game out of the past seven in which Hairston has reached double figures in scoring.

Thanks to a 3-pointer by Theron Caleo midway through the first half, California saw its lead grow to 12 points, which would be its biggest lead of the night before Clarion slowly started to chip away.

“I thought we started off right tonight,” said head coach Bill Brown. “But then we started to kind of hit a wall. I think we were fortunate tonight. I told our team at halftime that somebody tonight is playing in their last game, if we lose this game there is no guarantee for anything.”

The Vulcans had some uncharacteristic struggles from the free-throw line, especially in the second half, which Brown pointed to as a potential difference maker in the Golden Eagles comeback attempt.

“We made some stops tonight,” said Brown. “But we started missing a lot of free-throws down the stretch while they started making them. The big key however was the fact we went to the line 38 times while they only went to the line 17 times. Fortunately we were able to maintain a six or eight point lead, but if we make some of those free-throws we could have very easily won by ten or more points.”

This was the Vulcans third victory over Clarion this season as California won the previous contests by scores of 66-63 and 80-60.

Friday nights match-up against Cheyney will be a rematch of an early December meeting where the Vulcans pulled out a 69-61 win on the road.

“They’re a very athletic team,” Brown said. “They have a couple of kids they didn’t have in that earlier game so they’re also a different team right now. They do a lot of the same things, just with different guys.”