Portland, Ore. | Kendall Watson gathered his third consecutive double-double on Tuesday, grabbing 18 boards along with 10 points to lead the seven Knights who scored in double-digits. Warner Pacific, now 6-5 and 2-1 in conference play, defeated cross-town rival Multnomah University 89-76 on Tuesday night.
 
JD Esters was just one assist shy of a double-double himself with 9 dishes and 14 points. Kadeem Strickland scored 14 points, shooting 5-9 from the arc; managing to sink 3 or more 22-footers in 8 of the 9 games he's played. Jalen Ballard (11 pts), Mo Bethea (13 pts, 4 ast), Miles Brown (13 pts, 8 rebs) and Kaleb Tompkins (14 pts, 8 rebs) all added to the double-figures party.
 
In what seemed would be a 3-point shootout, the two teams exchanged buckets and the lead a few times in the first twenty minutes of play, launching a combined 42 3-point field goal attempts in just the first half alone.
 
Multnomah led for the first 10 minutes of play before a 25-footer from the hands of Kadeem Strickland tied it up at 19 with just over 10 minutes left in the first half. As the first twenty minutes were coming to a close, the Knights went on an 11-5 run to head into the break with a 6-point lead.
 
At the intermission, the Knights' defense held the Nation's leading scorer in NAIA DII, Justin Martin, to just 9 points.
 
The Lions came out with vengeance in the second half, going on a 7-4 run and closing the gap to 1 with the help of a Justin Martin 30-foot pull-up. As MU kept creeping closer and closer to regaining the lead, Warner Pac responded with a 12-0 run of their own to eventually bust the lead open to 22-points, the largest lead of the game with 4-and-a-half minutes remaining.
 
MU's Martin finished with a game-high 22 points and led five Lions in double-figures. Jaeden Ingram finished with 16 and 6, Stepan Zavydovskyy finished with 13 and 7 while Zach Richardson and Trey Fountain both finished with 10 points.
 
Warner Pacific will host Walla Walla University on Friday afternoon for game one of the weekend's two. Tip-off is set for 2pm at C.C. Perry Gymnasium.