The MACU men's basketball team battled back from an eight-point halftime deficit to take an early lead over Southwestern Christian in the second half, but the Eagles went on a big run midway through to pull away with an 85-73 win over the Evangels inside Pickens-Springer Gymnasium on Tuesday night.
TOP PERFORMERS
- DaRaun Clark - 22 Points, 10-20 FG, 3 Reb, 2 Steals
- Eylan Goodwyn - 9 Points, 7-13 FT, 4 Reb, 3 Steals, 2 Assists
- Tarrence Gaines – 6 Points, 7 Rebounds
- First Half
- Southwestern Christian jumped to a quick lead early in the first half with as Robert Chapman and Shawn Hopkins cashed in a pair of threes during to make it a 10-4 Eagles advantage with 15:50 to go.
- After closing the gap to a three-point game at 12-9 with 13:46 to play after a pair of layups from Trevonte Doolittle and Quentin Woodson, SCU's Chapman and Taylor Turner knocked down back-to-back three-pointers during a 10-2 Eagles run, stretching the SCU edge to 22-11 with 11:39 remaining.
- MACU struck back with a 9-0 run of its own with Conner Calavan scoring five straight points and a DaRaun Clark layup that crunched the SCU lead down to 22-20 with 8:30 to play.
- Darrin Ryan put together a personal nine-unanswered streak behind a trio of consecutive three-pointers, extending the SCU lead to 31-20 with just over six minutes to go.
- Clark scored six of MACU's final 10 points in the first half to keep the Evangels within striking distance at 40-32 heading into the break.
- Second Half
- MACU came out firing on all cylinders by opening the half with a 14-3 surge as Clark gave the Evangels their first lead of the night at 45-43 by nabbing a steal at midcourt and taking it in for a contested fastbreak layup with 15:52 left to play.
- With the Evangels holding a one-point cushion at 48-47 with 14:03 remaining, Hopkins helped ignite a dominant 19-3 run for the Eagles with a strong finish on the left side from a Luiz Machado Jr. dish as the two players combined to score 10 SCU's points in the run to make it a 68-52 game with just over eight minutes to go.
- The Evangels halted the run by getting to the foul line, as Clark and Goodwyn combined to go 6-for-6 from the line to cut it to a 68-58 deficit with just under seven minutes remaining.
- SCU came right back at the Evangels by scoring eight of the next 10 as Bralen Patterson's offensive rebound and put-back extendied its lead to 76-59 with 3:56 left to play.
- Clark and Doolittle scored on back-to-back possessions to bring MACU back to within 10 with 1:21 remaining. However, a three-pointer from Chapman with 1:13 on the clock was the dagger that would finish off the Evangels. Clark capped off the night with one more layup with eight seconds left to wrap-up the 85-73 final.
- Despite coming up a little short, Mid-America Christian shot well from the field by going 28-of-70 (40 percent), but struggled from three-point range by knocking down just 2-of-18 (11.1 percent) from the three-point range.
- Southwestern Christian managed to out-shoot the Evangels by going 28-of-61 (45.9 percent) from the floor and 10-for-30 (33.3 percent) from downtown.
- Free throw shooting played a major factor in the result as MACU mustered just 15-of-30 (50 percent) while Southwestern Christian shot an efficient 19-for-24 (79.2 percent) from the charity stripe.
- DaRaun Clark led the MACU scoring efforts as the only player to crack double-figures with 22 points on 10-of-20 shooting and went 2-for-2 from the line to go along with three rebounds.
- With the win, SCU moves to 5-5 overall and 3-4 in Sooner Athletic Conference play while MACU lost its third consecutive game, falling to 3-8 overall and 1-5 in SAC play.
- After suffering a heartbreaking 68-67 defeat inside Pickens-Springer Gymnasium last season, the Evangels have lost back-to-back games at Southwestern Christian for the first time since 2017 and 2018.
Original source can be found here
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