No. 12 Mustangs hold off Hope International

Jordan Starr is in the midst of one of the best stretches of his young career. 
 
The sophomore guard equaled a career-high with 19 points in a win over William Jessup on Saturday.
 
Tuesday night at Hope International he posted a new career-best with 20 points as The Master's University fended off the host Royals 70-69.
 
"Happy to get out of Hope with a win," said head coach Kelvin Starr. "It was a very physical game and our guys played hard the whole night."
 
Senior center Tim Soares scored 19 points and took down seven rebounds before fouling out. And senior forward Brock Gardner tossed in 12 points, highlighted by an 8-for-8 showing from the line, to go with eight rebounds, tying him for game-high honors.
 
Starr was 3-for-6 from beyond the arc. 
 
The last of Starr's points, a free throw, with 15 seconds left gave the Mustangs a 70-66 lead.  They needed all of that four-point advantage to hold on for the win as Hope scored the game's final three points and made it hard for Master's to in-bound the ball on more than one occassion.
 
The Mustangs (19-6, 9-5 GSAC) led by as many as 14 points (53-39) on a Starr jumper with 13:59 left in the game before the Royals started to chip away at the deficit.
 
Hope pulled within 67-65 with 1:09 remaining. But two Gardner free throws extended TMU's lead back to four at the 30-second mark. Hope's Josh Powell-Davis hit a jump shot with six seconds left that brought his team within one, and the Royals got the ball back in time for one final half-court heave that missed the basket. 
 
Starr drained all three of his treys in the first half.  He was fouled on his final make from behind the arc and converted the free throw for a four-point play with 4:11 remaining that was part of a 10-0 run by the Mustangs.
 
He converted a conventional three-point play with 2:50 left in the stanza to give the Mustangs their largest lead to that point, 37-24.
 
They led 39-32 at halftime.
 
The Mustangs play San Diego Christian College on Thursday evening at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa.