Southeastern Suffers First Loss of the Year

BETHANY, Okla. – No. 12/14 Southeastern had its coldest shooting effort of the season en route to suffering its first loss of the year, 77-65 on the road against Southern Nazarene on Saturday afternoon in Bethany, Okla.
 
The Savage Storm dip to 5-1 overall on the year and 3-1 in Great American Conference play heading into a non-conference matchup on Dec. 16 against Arlington Baptist at 7:30 p.m. in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
 
A trio of SE players reached double-figures with Buckingham turning in a team-best 17 points, while Adam Dworsky added 15 and A'Torey Everett chipped in 14.
 
Dworsky dished out six assists to pace the Storm and trigger the offense.
 
Kellen Manek hauled in a team-best seven re bounds, while Kayo Goncalves and Buckingham pulled down five each.
 
Southeastern opened the game on fire and jumped out to a 10-1 lead with a run capped by a Dworsky layup at the 16:56 mark of the opening half.
 
The Crimson Storm however answered with a 23-5 run to leave SE in a 24-15 hole before an Everett layup would end the run.
 
The Crimson Storm would score on the next possession and was able to close the gap to 26-20 on an Everett three.
 
SNU would close out the half with a 13-8 advantage to leave the Storm trailing 39-28 at halftime.
 
While the SE offense would connect better in the second half, hitting 42.9 percent after a 31.3 percent first half effort, it was not enough to offset a 53.8 percent effort by the Crimson Storm.
 
Southeastern would cut the deficit to single digits twice in the early going of the second half, first on a Buckingham bucket and then on an Everett jumper, but SNU would respond and push its lead out to 15 points.
 
The Storm would close to a 10-point gap three times over the final 10 minutes but was never able to truly erase the deficit, falling 77-65.