Box Score

Bolivar, Mo. - The Southwest Baptist University men's basketball team won an overtime thriller at William Jewell 80-77. With the victory, SBU improves to 2-3 on the season.

The Bearcats and Cardinals played a tight game with two evenly matched teams. SBU and WJC exchanged leads for the first three and a half minutes before Southwest Baptist built up a small lead. Back-to-back three's from Quinton Smith pushed the SBU lead to seven (16-9) with 13:44 left in the first half. The Bearcats and Cardinals played even for a majority of the remainder of the first half, with the Bearcats holding the lead all the way to half, going into the break up 40-33.

In the second half Jewell opened up with back-to-back buckets to cut into the Bearcat lead with SBU up 40-37. SBU quickly responded with a jumper from Derrick Stewart, followed by another three from Smith to extend the lead back to eight at 45-37. The Bearcats continued to push, and a Daymond Cowlah old fashioned three point play put the Bearcats up double-digits at 55-44 with 11:16 to go. William Jewell cut the lead back down to four, but SBU responded back with a 12-4 run to push the Southwest Baptist lead to game high 12 at 70-58 with 4:34 left in the regulation. Jewell stormed right back, using a 13-1 run to tie the game up at 71-71 with 1:57 left in regulation. Neither team was able to put another point on the scoreboard, as regulation ended in a 71-71 tie.

In the overtime period, the Bearcats jumped ahead 76-71 off of a three from Menas Stephens and a layup from Cowlah with 3:03 left in the game. After a Jewell layup, Derrick Stewart hit two big freethrows to put the lead back at 5 with 1:25 left. The Cardinals continued to fight, scoring the next four points, but SBU was able to break the press as Stephens had a wide open layup with 22 seconds left to push the SBU lead to 80-77. The Bearcat defense buckled down and held the Cardinal offense in check as SBU went on to a 80-77 victory.

The Bearcats were once again led in scoring by Daymond Cowlah who had a team high 14 points off of 6 of 7 shooting from the field. Menas Stephens added 13 points and 8 rebounds, while Quinton Smith had 12 points and David Gabrovsek added 11 points in the victory. On the boards, Derrick Stewart had 8 rebounds to go along with 9 points and Patrick Burke gave SBU 7 rebounds off of the bench. As a team, SBU out-rebounded WJC 44-32 as the Bearcats shot 47.4% from the field, 43.5% from beyond the arc, and 61.5% from the free throw line.

SBU will be back in action on Friday, November 28 when they travel to Russellville, Arkansas for a pair of games this weekend. Play on Friday against Ouachita Baptist is set to begin at 4:00 p.m.