SE Falls at HSU on Backend of Road Swing

ARKADELPHIA, Ark. – Bobby Johnson led a trio of double-digit scorers and Southeastern mounted a second-half rally, but were ultimately unable to close out the comeback in an 84-73 loss at Henderson State on Saturday afternoon in Arkadelphia, Ark.
 
The loss drops the Savage Storm to 12-4 overall and 7-3 in Great American Conference play.
 
"I think we had some early looks that we didn't knock down," said head coach Kelly Green, "And then they were scrambling around and flying around defensively, and I thought they did a nice job of maybe rushing us a little bit. We had some looks that we just didn't hit. That's happened to us a time or two.
 
"The biggest problem we had was defensively," Green continued, "We were just taking the ball out of the net too much in the first half. They were driving on us and they were really hurting us."
 
Johnson finished the contest with 19 points to lead all scorers, shooting 50.0 percent overall and hitting a trio of threes. He also led the team on the boards with eight rebounds and handed out three assists.
 
Adam Dworsky got back to form in scoring, finishing with 17 points on 5-of-9 shooting with three threes and dishing out a game-high five assists.
 
Ante Brzovic rounded out the double-digit scorers with 16 points on 7-of-13 shooting with six rebounds.
 
Kellen Manek just missed double0figrues with eight points, while Jett Sternberger finished with six.
 
The Storm fell behind early after HSU opened the game on a 12-3 run, but a Brzovic thee and a Sternberger bucket would slow the charge and get SE back to within 12-8 with 14:58 to play in the half.
 
A pair of Al Ervin free throws and five-straight points from Johnson would get SE moving and an RJ Weeks layup would close the gap to 21-19 with 9:43 to play in the first.
 
HSU would respond with a 9-2 run to push its lead back to nine points.
 
Southeastern would put together a 9-4 run to get the deficit back to 32-28 with 2:45 remaining, but the Reddies finished the half on an 11-3 run to lead at the half 43-31.
 
SE chipped away over the first eight minutes of the second half, closing the gap to 53-47 on a Johnson three with 12:19 to play.
 
The Reddies answered with an 8-0 run and would eventually push its lead out to 68-51 with 8:40 to play.
 
Southeastern would connect on 6-of-8 threes between the 8:24 mark and the 3:21 mark, with Dworsky's last three in that run closing the deficit to 76-69 with 3:21 remaining.
 
However, that was where the rally would run out of gas as HSU would score eight of the final 12 points to hand SE an 84-73 loss.