PASADENA, Calif. – Caltech Men's Basketball played their first home game of the 2022-23 season Saturday afternoon against the Illinois Institute of Technology Scarlet Hawks, emerging victorious after a solid all-around performance against a team with a lot of momentum and a deep roster.

Things looked ominous in the early minutes as the guests stormed out to an 8-0 lead, but the Beavers got on the board with a Pavlos Stavrinides layup followed by a three by Ben Juarez.  Later, trailing 10-5, Caltech mounted a 14-point run in less than three minutes of game time, cruising ahead 19-10. Another pair of three-pointers by Kyle McGraw and a Chase Pagon layup gave the Beavers a 29-17 lead. The Hawks kept battling their way back, but an emphatic Stavrinides dunk in the waning seconds of the half sent Caltech to the locker room ahead by a 33-28 margin. 

After the break, Caltech sunk their first four shots in a row to pull ahead by 15 points, 43-28, and pulled ahead by a daunting 17 points by the 12:30 mark in the second half. The visitors fought back to a six-point deficit at 56-50, but they would come no closer as the Beavers defended fiercely and Noah Hicks added some insurance points with a couple critical layups. With time running out, Illinois Tech resorted to fouling and conceding free throws to get the ball back, but success at the free throw line sealed Caltech's first victory of the young regular season.

"Everyone played well," Head Coach Dr. Oliver Eslinger said. "This group is incredibly resilient and has progressed so much in just a few weeks. It was a good, balanced effort from end to end. By limiting their players to low-percentage shots, our defense really created those runs we went on."

Indeed, these same Hawks scored 98 points in a win against Cal Lutheran just two days earlier, with four players scoring in double figures. Coach Eslinger emphasized the team defense as a key to victory tonight. 

The Beavers host Bethesda University (Anaheim, Calif.) on Thursday night at 7 p.m.