SANTA ANA - After going winless in the first round of Orange Empire Conference competition, the Dons opened the second round with a 79-76 win over visiting Riverside City College. The win improves the Dons to 5-16 on the season and 1-6 in conference while Riverside falls to 11-12 overall and 3-4 in conference.

The teams played a very tight first half with neither team leading by more than five points. The Tigers held the first five-point lead early at 14-9 seven minutes into the game before the Dons grabbed their five-point lead on Kaleb Phillips' three pointer with three minutes remaining. The teams would eventually go into the half tied at 32-32.

Riverside broke that tie with a three-pointer to open the second half before Phillips and Hamel hit back-to-back three-pointers to put the Dons up 38-35. The Dons would not relinquish that lead for the remainder of the game while building their largest lead of the game at 59-48 on a De'Jon Frazier tip-in with 10:02 remaining in the game.

But Riverside put together a late run as the Tigers got as close as two points twice in the final 1:07 of the game. After Riverside cut the Dons lead to 72-70, the Dons converted five-straight free throws to take a 77-70 lead. Riverside's Wilson Tramel then hit a three-pointer to pull the Tigers within four before hitting another three after a Roger Hamel free throw to make the score 76-78 with five seconds left. But the only point remaining in the game came on a Noah Wellington free throw as the Dons held on for the 79-76 win.

Wellington led all scorers with 24 points while Phillips added 16 off the bench. Hamel also broke double digits as he scored 14 points. For Riverside, Wilson and Jordan Bryant each scored 16 points and Courtney Moffatt added 14.