YUMA, Ariz. - For the first time since 2009, the Arizona Western men's basketball team have the ACCAC regular season championship all to themselves. 

"It's really hard to win a conference championship," Matador Head Coach Kyle Isaacs said. "It's even harder to do it outright, by yourself."

The Matadors claimed the title all to themselves with Wednesday night's 103-80 win over Yavapai on the road. The Matadors now have a two-game lead in the conference standings with one game to go. It marks the first time in 17 years Arizona Western is all alone at the top of the regular season standings to close out the schedule. 

"We started talking about Mariano Rivera, one of the greatest baseball closers of all time," Isaacs said. "We said, hey, let's go be the best closers we can be. We showed up on Wednesday night, did a great job and closed it out."

Now in his fifth season, this marks the second time the Matadors under Isaacs leadership have won the ACCAC, they finished with a two-way tie with Cochise after the 2021-22 season. The Matadors also shared a tie for the title in the 2016-17 season. The last time the Matadors won the ACCAC outright before Wednesday night came under Kelly Green in the 2008-09 season.

"Basketball is such a long season." Isaacs said. "Our players got here on August 15th, now, if we do everything right, we'll be playing until late March. We talked about commitment and making the daily deposits and trying to cash out those deposits right now."

While the Matadors won the conference title in Yavapai, they didn't cut down the nets as most teams usually do.

"We really didn't have it set up to do it there," Isaacs said. "I was hoping to do it last Saturday, but I didn't know the other scores, didn't have enough time to get organized. To do it today is symbolic of the hard work, they worked way too hard to not have the opportunity to have that experience. We hope to have another one in front of our fans in about a week."

The Matadors will wrap up their regular season schedule this Saturday versus Eastern Arizona. Arizona Western is locked in as the No. 1 seed and Eastern Arizona as the No. 2 seed. It will also be sophomore day for the Matadors. Tipoff in The House is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. MST. The game will also be streamed on the Matador Sports Stream https://portal.stretchinternet.com/awcmatadors