SE Rally Falls Short in Loss to ECU

DURANT, Okla. – Southeastern erased double-digit deficits in both halves, but saw its rally fall just short on Monday night in a 76-72 loss to Rival East Central in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
 
The loss snaps a three-game winning streak and drops the Savage Storm to 10-14 overall and 8-10 in Great American Conference play, tying them for eighth with Arkansas Tech, three games ahead of Arkansas-Monticello and one game behind Northwestern Oklahoma State.
 
Anton Cook paced the SE scoring with 18 points on the night on the strength of three threes.
 
Marti Fonolla had three threes of his own and finished with 15 points, while DJ Henderson turned in eight and Tyler Lonzie had seven.
 
SE shot 34.3 percent from the field overall, but hit 40.0 percent from behind the arc going 12-of-30.
 
Kyle Roberts helped trigger the offense off the bench with six assists.
 
Lonzie matched his second-best rebounding outing of the season with 12 boards as the teams were knotted at 44-to-44 in rebounds.  Cook was next in line with six while two others had five each.
 
After a brief 2-2 tie early the Tigers would take the lead on a 10-0 run to open up a 12-2 advantage.
 
That would grow to as many as 14 points in the half before the Storm would mount a rally with a 17-4 run that was capped by a Cook free throw which closed the gap to 26-24 with 4:38 to go in the half.
 
The Tigers would maintain the lead however, but SE would keep the deficit at two points with the halftime margin being 34-32.
 
East Central would maintain its lead and use an 8-0 run midway through the second half to stretch its lead to 56-45 with 8:04 to play.
 
The deficit was still double figures with just over five minutes to play, but the Storm would chip away,. Getting the edge down to five points on three occasions, but ultimately a Cook three with four seconds left would get the score to 76-72 which would be the final with the Tigers holding off the rally.