Ridge Shipley provided the offensive spark for Cal Poly on Friday night at Mott. By Owen Main

A year ago, Cal Poly had a team good enough to make it to the NCAA Tournament, but not good enough to beat Delaware on the East coast. This year, Delaware returned the trip and Ridge Shipley and the Mustangs returned the beat-down, overtaking the Blue Hens 78-60.

The game wasn’t really close for the final 30 minutes. The opening quarter of the game saw Delaware miss several open shots while Cal Poly found their offensive rhythm.

Shipley, a sophomore point guard who was unavailable in the first game started alongside senior point guard Maliik Love. While Shipley led the team with 21 points, love managed 9 assists and 7 rebounds without scoring a point or turning the ball over.

“Me and Maliik have been playing really well together. We’ve been looking forward to this for a while, coming off the bench together last year we had a lot of fun together,” said Shipley. “He’s one of hte best attackers on the team and he gets my man to dig in on him and gets me wide open shots.”

Love feels the same way about his point guard understudy.

“Ridge is a great attacker and he compliments my game,” said Love. “If he’s attacking then I’m pulling up and spacing and if I’m attacking, he’s doing the same thing. It’s the dynamic duo with us two. It’s great.”

Cal Poly went on a 21-3 run to end the first half, highlighted by a David Nwaba dunk and by six three-pointers in the half. Four technical foul free throws by Ridge Shipley didn’t hurt either as the Mustangs built-up a 48-22 advantage at halftime. Their 48 points in a half is the most since they dropped 57 on Cal State Northridge two and a half years ago at Mott.

“Obviously you get excited when you make the threes, get a dunk,” said Cal Poly head coach, Joe Callero. “But I’ve seen a lot of threes and a lot of dunks, but what I like are passing and catching and taking care of the ball.”

Cal Poly had zero turnovers in the first half compared to 10 assists. Overall, they only committed four turnovers for the game compared to 16 assists. It was really the ideal recipe for a Joe Callero post-game smile.

“I remember getting under a guy’s skin a little bit. He retaliated, and I know that got my fire going,” said Shipley. “Certain people are going to be hot, and I think that the unselfishness we have on our team that’s instilled by our coaching staff has lead to a lot of good, smart shots.”

For their part, Delaware turned it over just 11 times, but seven of those were in the first half when the Mustangs built up their big lead.

“There’s a tremendous impact that traveling across the country, going across three time zone,” said Callero, noting that Delaware was without a top scorer in the game.

The win for the Mustangs moves their record above .500 at 2-1 overall. They’ll play 10 of their next 11 games on the road between now and the first few weeks of January. Their next game will be at Cal on Wednesday night in Berkeley.

Photos by Owen Main

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