Brzovic Double-Double Leads SE in Win at OBU

ARKADELPHIA, Ark. – Ante Brzovic turned in his third-straight double-double to help lift Southeastern to an 81-65 road victory over Ouachita Baptist on Thursday night in Arkadelphia, Ark.
 
The win improves the Savage Storm to 12-3 overall on the year and 7-2 in Great American Conference play heading into a 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon matchup with Henderson State.
 
"That's been a huge part of our demise in about three games this year," said head coach eyy Green when asked about the team's free throw shooting. "We haven't stepped up at the line and made free throws during those stretches to allow teams to get back into games and then they've been problems for us."
 
"We haven't been committed," Green continued, "We haven't been committed defensively. We talked about this with our team the other day and I think as coaches we've let some things slip and we've got to be more committed. We were looking at our games this year and some games we've won and not had that extra step of commitment on the defensive end, and I thought tonight that we did. Pretty much for the whole game we stayed committed on the defensive end."
 
Brzovic put together a 10-of-15 shooting effort to finish with 24 points and tacked on his 10^th rebound in the final minute of the contest to finish with his seventh double-digit rebounding performance.
 
Bobby Johnson added 17 in his return to the lineup with a trio of threes.
 
Jett Sternberger turned in 14 points, hitting 4-of-7 from beyond the arc, while Kellen Manek matched his 14 points, but did it on a 9-of-12 effort at the free throw line.
 
Adam Dworsky was held to his lowest scoring output of the season, finishing with just two points, but still flirted with a double-double as he dished out a game-best eight assists and added seven rebounds.
 
Manek added a pair of blocked shots and hauled in five rebounds, while Brzovic snagged a game-high three steals.
 
The teams traded buckets out of the gate before a 6-0 SE run would give the Storm an 11-7 advantage early after a pair of Manek free throws.
 
The early Southeastern lead would extend to six points on a Brzovic dunk with 13:21 to play in the half, but an 8-0 OBU run would erase that lead and the Storm trailed 18-16 with 11:13 to go in the first.
 
A Sternberger three would answer and kick off a 13-2 run that saw Southeastern balloon its lead out to 29-20 on a Brzovic layup with 6:51 remaining in the half.
 
One more OBU push would close the Storm lead to just six points, but a Manek three would get the momentum moving again and SE would take a 42-32 lead at the half.
 
SE would slowly nudge its lead closer to 20 points, taking a 51-34 lead on a Johnson three at the 17:27 mark of the second half.
 
OBU would answer with five-straight to close the gap to 12 points, but the Storm would stall them there until a bucket with 13:00 to play closed the Tigers to within 58-47.
 
The SE lead would see-saw between 11 and 16 points over the next 10 minutes with OBU making one final push and closing the gap to 73-63 with 3:58 to play.
 
A pair of Brzovic free throws would end that run and Southeastern would follow by going 6-of-8 on free throws while the defense held the Tigers to 0-for-5 shooting from the field in the final 3:22 to pull away with the 81-65 win.