By: Jeff Weseloh, Director of Athletics Media Relations
Box Score Bolivar, Mo. - The Southwest Baptist University men's basketball team returned from break to defeat the Owls of William Woods 64-53 on Tuesday evening. With the victory, SBU improves to 6-7 on the season.
In a poor shooting night for both squads, Southwest Baptist and William Woods played a back-and-forth affair for the first ten minutes of action. The Owls opened up the game the game with a 3-0 lead, but the Bearcats quickly doubled up WWU to take a 6-3 lead four minutes into action. William Woods re-took the lead at 9-8 with 13:28 left in the half, but that would be the last time the Owls led in the contest. Southwest Baptist used a 16-3 run to push their lead to 12, capped off by a
Patrick Burke layup to give SBU a 24-12 lead. The Bearcats and Owls held constant, a three-pointer from
Derrick Stewart with 35 seconds left in the half extended the lead to 39-25, as Southwest Baptist eventually went into the half up 39-26.
In the second half, the Bearcats and Owls once again played even through the first 10 minutes of the half. With a 46-35 lead with 12:13 left in the game, the Bearcats used back-to-back three's from Smith and Stewart, and a pair of buckets from
Menas Stephens, to push their lead to a game high 21 at 56-35 with 9:51 left in the contest. However, William Woods would start to chip away at the Bearcat lead, using a 15-0 run cut SBU's lead down to six at 56-50. The Bearcats responded with a layup from Burke and a jumper from Stephens to push the lead back to double-digits at 60-50 with 2:38 to go. In the end, the Bearcats would end up claiming a 64-53 victory.
Menas Stephens narrowly missed a career high scoring night, pouring in 20 points while also pulling down 14 rebounds for his 7th double-double of the season.
Derrick Stewart added 9 points to go along with 5 rebounds, while
Robert Shaw had 8 points and
Quinton Smith added 7 points in the victory. As a team, SBU shot 34.4% from the field, 26.1% from beyond the arc, and 53.3% from the free throw line.
The Bearcats will be back in action on Monday, January 5 when they travel to Fort Hays State for an MIAA match-up with the Tigers. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. from Hays, Kansas.
