Box Score

Bolivar, Mo. – The Southwest Baptist University men's basketball team picked up their first win of the season with a 68-63 victory over Maryville on Saturday evening. With the victory, SBU moves to 1-3 on the season.

The Bearcats jumped ahead early against the Saints, and after back-to-back buckets from Robert Shaw, SBU held a 12-4 lead with 15:02 left in the first half. A Derrick Stewart three with 12:18 to go in the first half gave the Bearcats their largest lead of the night at 18-8, but MU continued to hang with the Bearcats. Over the next eight minutes the Saints chipped away at the SBU lead, as the Bearcats fell behind 27-26 with 4:10 left in the first half. From that point until the end of the half, SBU and MU exchanged leads five different times, with the Bearcats heading into the break trailing 35-34.

In the second half the lead changes continued before Maryville started to put a little distance between themselves and Southwest Baptist. The Saints pushed their lead to a game high 10 with 13:30 left, but the Bearcats didn't back down. SBU started to slowly work on the MU lead, cutting the lead down to two several times before Menas Stephens hit a layup with 4:12 left in the game to tie it up at 55-55. The Bearcats continued to roll, going on a 13-0 run to regain the lead at 62-55 with 58 seconds left in the contest. SBU hit free throws down the stretch as the claimed the 68-63 victory.

"I'm proud of the way our guys competed tonight," head coach Clark Sheehy stated. "We got down 10 points in the second half, and I thought we showed a lot of resolve to be tough from that point on. I was really proud of that. They did a good job responding after an emotional game on Tuesday, and this was a big win heading into a five-game road trip."
Menas Stephens produced his third double-double on the season with 11 points and 15 rebounds, while Daymond Cowlah had a team high 16 points. Robert Shaw had 9 points off of the bench, and Derrick Stewart, Quinton Smith, and Finn Delany all chipped in 8 points. As a team, SBU shot 40.0% from the field, 27.3% from beyond the arc, and 90.0% from the free throw line.

The Bearcats will hit the road on Tuesday, November 25 when they travel to William Jewell for a match-up against the Cardinals. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. from Liberty, Missouri.