Dworsky Record Night Helps SE to Win

DURANT, Okla. – Adam Dworsky continued to write his name in the record books as he dished out a Southeastern and Great American Conference single-game record tying 16 assists to lift the Savage Storm to a 91-73 win over Northwestern Oklahoma State on Saturday afternoon in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
 
The win moves SE to 19-6 overall on the season and 13-5 in GAC play.
 
"They are also a team that's won on the road," said head coach Kelly Green. "They've got four conference road wins overall, over Tech and East Central.  Very quality road wins. They're very athletic and you can see over the second half they can throw the ball down inside and they were scoring the ball and giving us problems there."
 
"We did a good job of guarding the threes," he continued "So we were kind of trading threes for twos a little bit."
 
Dworsky's 16 was the second time he put his name in the books on the night as his fourth assist of the contest back in the first half was his 498^th career assist which moved into first place on the school's career assists list, passing Steve Harrell's career total of 497. He also becomes just the fourth player in GAC history to surpass the 500 assist mark for a career.
 
"He gets the benefit of guys that can score the ball and guys that run the floor," said Green. "Then Adam's job is to find them and he's pretty shifty out there with the ball. It's nice to know when you throw the ball to somebody that they can make shots."
 
It was his 11^th double-digit assists outing and he just missed a double-double as he finished with eight points.
 
Several of his assists with to Kevin Buckingham who finished with a game-high 29 points on 13-of-21 shooting, putting up 23 of those in the first half. His 29 points was enough to help him move up the all-time lists as well as he passed Eric Babers to move into fourth place on SE's all-time scoring list
 
In his second start of the season Todd Dawkins put up a season-best 17 points and was the team's number two scorer as he connected on 5-of-10 threes.
 
Kayo Goncalves matched that 5-of-10 effort from long range and finished with 15.
 
Kellen Manek rounded out the scoring with 13 points on 4-of-6 shooting.
 
Buckingham and Goncalves each hauled in a team-best seven rebounds, while Buckingham helped dish the ball around, finishing with four assists.
 
Southeastern opened on a 9-0 run but the Rangers answered with an 11-3 run to close the score to 12-11 by the 12:29 mark of the first half.
 
The Storm pushed its lead out to six points before another rally would knot the game at 22-22 with 8:04 to play in the half.
 
NWOSU would eventually take the lead, going up by three before SE finished on a flurry, using a 21-7 run capped by a Buckingham three with four seconds to go to take a 47-36 lead to the halftime break.
 
The Storm maintained its edge and by the 16:42 mark a Buckingham layup would make the score 63-43.
 
The Southeastern lead would twice hit 21 points before the Rangers started chipping away.
 
A 17-6 run by NWOSU would close the Storm lead to 10 points with 6:51 to play, and it would get to 10 points twice more, the last time coming with 3:00 to play.
 
SE would then score the final eight points of the game to pick up the 91-73 victory.