SE Athletics
Matt Thomas, Sports Information Director
Sports presented by Indian Nation Wholesale.
The win lifts the Savage Storm to 6-4 overall and 4-2 in Great American Conference play heading into a 1 p.m. Saturday afternoon matchup with Harding, also in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
“We defended them,” said head coach Darin Grover after the win. “We defended them in the first half and kept them away from the basket. We did a good job of executing the game plan and we knocked down shots. We didn’t do a good job in the first half of knocking down shots, but I thought we did a good job in the second half of doing that.”
“We had two freshmen in Kamryn Cantwell and Briley Moon, who came out and between those two they had about half our points and half our rebounds between two players and they’re both freshmen.”
Moon led all scorers on the night with 21 points on 5-of-7 shooting, including a 4-for-4 effort from three-point range, while Cantwell added 16 points for the scoring half of her double-double.
Katie Webb hit 6-of-10 from the field and finished with 14 points, while Alix Robinson turned in 11 on the strength of three threes.
Cantwell and Katie Branam each dished out three assists, while SE shot 41.0 percent from the field for the contest and hit 11 threes as a team.
Moon and Cantwell each completed their double-doubles with 10 rebounds, while Tracy Johnson added eight.
The trio of Webb, Cantwell and Moon paced the Storm in the first half as they combined for 29 of the team’s 38 first half points, with Webb and Cantwell putting up 10 each while Moon added nine off the bench.
ATU opened with a pair of free throws, but Robinson would connect on back-to-back threes to put the Storm in front.
That lead grew as large as seven points at 12-5 after a pair of Cantwell free throws, but the Suns would use an 8-3 run to cut the SE lead to 15-13 at the end of one.
A Cantwell three would get the Storm moving in the second quarter and by the 6:15 mark a Moon layup would give SE a 25-16 lead.
A Webb free throw with 3:15 to go in the half would push the lead to 10 points for the first time and continue what would ultimately be a 9-0 run to end the half by the Storm, capped by a Neely Noel three that gave Southeastern a 38-22 halftime lead.
The lead would remain double-figures but hover in the low teens in the early going of the third quarter until a 6-0 run, bookended by Webb buckets pushed the lead to 18 points and at the 4:26 mark would cross the 20-point threshold on the first of back-to-back threes from Moon which pushed the lead out to 57-33 with 3:52 to go in the third.
The lead would twice more hit 24 points before settling on a 63-40 lead heading to the fourth quarter.
Moon’s final three of the night with 4:41 to play would push the lead to 30 points before a Jordan Benson free throw put SE up by its largest margin of the night at 77-46 with 3:53 to play.
ATU would use a 13-3 run over the final three and a half minutes to fashion the final of 80-59.