CLAREMONT, Calif. - Senior forward Cahal Connolly had a career-high 27 points on 12-15 shooting to lead five players in double figures as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's basketball team defeated Occidental 94-86 on Wednesday evening at Roberts Pavilion in a battle of SCIAC unbeatens. 

With the win, CMS moves to 13-0 overall and 4-0 in the SCIAC, leaving it two wins shy of the best start in school history, set when the 2011-12 team opened up 15-0. Occidental slips to 9-3 overall and drops to 2-1 in league play. 

Joey Kennedy and Will Householter each had 15 points for the Stags, while Reid Jones had 14 and James Frye added 10 points off the bench. Jones had a strong overall line of 14 points, seven rebounds, six assists and four steals, while Frye added a team-high nine rebounds and four assists to go with his 10 points. 

The score was tight at 30-26 with five minutes left in the half, when CMS went on an electric 14-0 run. Jones had a layup off a Connolly assist, and then Connolly had two fast-break dunks 15 seconds apart to make it 36-26. After a time-out, Jones hit a jumper, then had a steak and fast-break lay-up, and Householter capped it off with a layup to stretch the lead to 42-26 with 2:08 left in the half. 

CMS settled for a 47-33 lead at the break, and built its largest lead at 23 points (65-42) with 13:19 left on a Kennedy lay-up. A Kennedy dunk made the score 86-68 with 4:46 to go, and the Stags led 94-73 with 2:27 to go, before Occidental closed on a 13-0 run to make the final deficit single digits at 94-86. 

CMS shot 56.1 percent as a team for the game (37-66), while taking only four three-point attempts in the entire game, making one (from Samuel Gibbs). The Stags had 25 assists as a team, with only 12 turnovers, led by Jones with six, Brady Karich with five, and Connolly and Frye with four apiece. 

CMS will be back in action on Saturday when it takes on Chapman for a 2 p.m. contest.