REDLANDS, Calif. - A winner had to be decided despite nine first half lead changes, eight different ties and neither team leading by more than six points. Cal Lutheran was on the short end of a 64-58 decision in Saturday night's conference opener at Redlands.

Box Score: UR 64, CLU 58 - F

In a back-and-forth tightly contested meeting Cal Lutheran's last field goal make came with 4:27 left in regulation from leading scorer Aaron Fisher. His and-one conversion capped off a 19-point outing for the senior forward.

However Redlands' Tristan Kirk scored nine of his team-best 15 points in the second half and with the game tied and just under three minutes to go the Bulldogs scored seven of the game's final eight points.

After Fisher knocked down the game's opening shot from beyond the arc, CLU as a team made only 1-of-14 three pointers the rest of the way. In spite of its perimeter shooting the Kingsmen used rebounding and free throw conversions to keep pace, trailing by only a 32-30 margin at the half.

Cal Lutheran never trailed by more than five until the final seconds of regulation and pulled even with Redlands on two separate occasions in the final six minutes. UR's Kirk countered with go-ahead layups both times with the last coming at the 2:29 mark.

Fisher led the Kingsmen scoring effort, along with nine rebounds, two assists and two steals. Jayvaughn Nettles led the Kingsmen bench with 10 points.

Kirk led Redlands with 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the floor, and three steals. Fellow starter Jack Colston had 13 points and led UR with seven rebounds. Andrew Mills contributed 12 points to lead the Bulldogs bench.

Saturday's contest at Currier Gym was a similar contest to each of the four conference games that took place to open the SCIAC schedule. All four matchups were decided by seven points or less including wins earned by Whittier (53-52 over La Verne), CMS (57-50 over Occidental) and Pomona-Pitzer (47-41 over Caltech).

Cal Lutheran (6-6, 0-1 SCIAC) will Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (5-6, 1-0 SCIAC) on Wednesday, Jan. 12 at 7:30 p.m.