Long Beach City College men’s basketball head coach Barry Barnes earned career victory No. 1 thanks to an impressive 97-64 non-conference win over visiting Fullerton College on Thursday night at the Hall of Champions Gym.

 

Five Vikings scored in double figures in the rout and every player that hit floor for LBCC contributed with at least one point.

 

Long Beach (1-1 overall) came out playing defense and held Fullerton scoreless over the first four minutes of the game. The Hornets finally broke LBCC’s 10-0 scoring run with a pair of free throws at the 15:55 mark.

 

LBCC led 49-26 at halftime and saw its biggest advantage of the game of 40 points when freshman Kyle Clark’s layup put the Vikings up 76-36 with 12:17 to go in the second half.

 

The Vikings were also impressive on the boards as Long Beach outrebounded Fullerton by a 57-33 margin.

 

Freshman Holsey Johnson came off the bench for the Vikings to post a double-double with game highs of 22 points and 14 rebounds. Sophomore Darrin Kirk totaled 16 points and five assist while sophomore Chris Brown had 10 points and nine rebounds.

 

Fullerton (2-4 overall) shot just 26 percent from the field (15 for 57) for the game. Guard Joshua Manning led the Hornets with 14 points.

 

Long Beach will have over a week off until it returns to action on November 19-21 at the Irvine Valley College tournament.

Report From LBCC’s Chirs Ruiz