Storm Hold Off Late Charge For Win at SWOSU

WEATHERFORD, Okla. – Kellen Manek dropped a season-high 22 points as all five Southeastern scorers reached double-figures and the Savage Storm held off a late Southwestern Oklahoma State rally to pick up a 76-75 victory on Saturday afternoon in Weatherford, Okla.
 
The win is the fifth-straight for the Savage Storm who improve to 14-3 overall on the season and 8-2 in Great American Conference play heading into a road trip to Arkadelphia, Ark., where they will next face Ouachita Baptist at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 23.
 
"The fact that we won by one," said head coach Kelly Green, "And they made 16 threes. And we had to play with different lineups throughout and we got really whopper-jawed. I don't know if that's a word or not. I've used discombobulated before, but we were discombobulated on the offensive and the defensive end."
 
"Kellen played 40 minutes tonight," said Green of Manek's performance. "And I thought was engaged the whole way. A couple weeks ago Kellen and I had a little talk about whose kind of our guy who can get out there and lead everybody in practice and lead everybody and he's got that. He's got natural presence. He's got presence on our team, our guys listen to him."
 
"It was a struggle," he continued. "You've got to give Southwestern credit. They had us off-kilter the entire game. Towards the end of the first half whenever we had different lineups in, they were starting out in a zone and they were going man at the end of the possession. So we were just really trying to get to halftime cause we had Kevin in foul trouble. We were just think let's just hold the ball and wait till they go man and run a little man set and it worked pretty goof for a little bit and we traded baskets with them because we couldn't keep them out of the paint in the first half."
 
Manek finished the contest with 22 points on 7-of-9 shooting overall, including a 4-of-6 effort from three-point range.
 
Adam Dworsky was next in line with 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting with a 4-of-5 effort from beyond the arc.
 
A'Torey Everett added 13 point, followed by Kevin Buckingham who turned in 12 points, all in the second half, with Kayo Goncalves finishing with 11.
 
Dwosrky matches his GAC low outing in assists with four but still led the Storm, while Everett and Buckingham each handed out three. Dworsky's four assists was enough to move hi into second place on Southeastern's all-time assists list, passing former teammate Jett Jobe and bringing his career total to 441 assists.
 
Manek also led all players on the glass with nine rebounds, with Buckingham right behind with eight, followed by Everett and Goncalves with seven apiece.
 
SE finished the night shooting 54.9 percent from the field, including a 58.3 percent effort in the second half and added a 45.8 percent effort from three-point range, hitting 11-of-24. The Storm struggled at the free throw line however, hitting 9-of-15 and matching its second-lowest performance form the line this season.
 
Dworsky hit a trio of first-half threes and finished the first half with 11 points, while Goncalves added weight and Manek chipped in seven.
 
The Storm posted a 51.9 percent shooting effort over the first 20 minutes and added a 46.2 percent effort from beyond the arc, hitting 6-of-13 threes.
 
SWOSU got on the board first and took an early 6-5 lead before a Goncalves layup kicked off a 14-2 run that he would also end with a three to put the Storm ahead 19-8 with 12:45 to go in the half.
 
The lead would reach 11 points on a Dworsky three with 10:40 remaining, but the Bulldogs answered with a 10-0 run to close the gap to 22-21 with 8:07 to go in the half.
 
A Dworsky three would end the scoreless drought and the Storm would push the lead back to seven points before the teams would slow over the final minutes, eventually settling on a 34-29 halftime lead for Southeastern.
 
The teams traded threes out of the break, but the Storm would put together an 8-0 run capped by a Goncalves Fastbreak bucket to stretch the lead back to 10 points with 17:26 to go in the second half.
 
SWOSU would again whittle the gap to one possession before a Buckingham answer would trigger a 9-0 run capped by an Everett three-point-play to extend the lead to 54-42 with 11:20 to play.
 
That was as large as the Storm lead would get as the Bulldogs again chipped away and would cut the lead to 57-54 with 9:15 to play on a Jaylan Williams three-point play.
 
SE would answer and the lead would extend to eight points, hovering between four and eight points until the 4:22 mark when a SWOSU three would close the gap to 66-64.
 
The Storm would again hold off the charge, slowly edging its lead back out, eventually going ahead 75-67 with 47 seconds to play.
 
The Bulldogs would score the next five points to make it a one possession ball game before sending Goncalves to the free throw line with four seconds to play.
 
He would hit the first to stretch the lead to 76-72 and miss the second, with SOWSU's Damion Thornton taking on a three at the buzzer to make the final score 76-75.