SE Athletics
DURANT – Kody Clouet dropped a game-high 24 points and Southeastern held off a late charge from Oklahoma Baptist to preserve a 92-87 win on Saturday afternoon in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
Sports presented by Indian Nation Wholesale.
The win lifts the Savage Storm to 6-5 overall on the season and 2-1 in Great American Conference play, while the loss dips the Bison to 5-4 on the year with a 2-1 mark in league play.
Clouet finished the night with an effective shooting percentage of 83.3 percent after hitting 6-of-8 from the field overall and adding a 9-of-10 effort at the free throw line. He would also connect on three of his four three-point tries.
Jett Sternberger was right behind with 19 points on 6-of-13 shooting, while Kyle Leslie drained a team-best four threes to finish the night with 18 points.
SE shot 53.8 percent in the second half, recovering from a 46.9 percent effort in the first half to finish the game hitting 50.0 percent exactly, while hitting 11 threes.
OBU would shot 59.0 percent overall for the game and hit eight threes of their own, but the Storm would make up the difference at the free throw line where it hit 23-of-26 for 88.5 percent while the Bison shot 70.0 percent from the stripe.
There weren’t a lot of rebounds to be had in the contest, with Clouet leading SE with five, while Leslie and Robert Briley pulled down four apiece.
Brennen Burns and Sternberger handed out a team-leading four assists each.
OBU came out hitting shots early, taking a 4-0 lead out of the gate on its way to a 9-3 run to open the game.
SE would bounce back, eventually tying the game at 13-13 on a Chandler Dickinson three at the 14:30 mark.
The Bison would slowly push out into the lead again, this time going up 23-17 at the 10:27 mark before The Storm used a 17-6 run to take a 34-29 lead with 5:14 to play in the half.
OBU would tie the game with 3:21 to play and the teams would combine for four ties and six lead changes over the final three minutes, fighting to a 44-44 tie at the break.
The game remained a back-and-forth contest with neither team taking more than a one-possession lead over the first 10 minutes of the second half until Southeastern reeled off a 15-4 run to take an 80-69 lead, the largest lead for either team in the game.
The Storm still held an 11-point edge with 4:05 to play, and would use a 7-2 run to close the gap to six points with 1:14 remaining.
Briley would sink a pair of free throws to give SE an 87-79 lead with 48 seconds left, and the Storm would hold on as OBU used an 8-3 run to make it a one-possession game at 90-87 with seven seconds to play.
A pair of Sternberger free throws with three seconds on the clock would seal the 92-87 Southeastern win.