Storm Secures Share of GAC Regular Season Title

DURANT, Okla. – Four players reached double-figures, including two with 20-point nights, as Southeastern laid claim to its first Great American Conference regular season championship on Friday night with an 80-76 victory over Oklahoma Baptist in Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
 
The win pushes the Savage Storm to 22-5 overall and 17-4 in GAC play and breaks a tie with the Bison atop the conference standings.
 
SE completes a sweep of OBU with the win, giving them the tiebreaker, and with a win in Saturday night's 7:30 p.m. contest with Northwestern Oklahoma State would secure the championship outright, but regardless of Saturday's outcome the Storm have secured the No. 1 seed heading into next week's GAC Tournament.
 
The championship is the team's first since joining the Great American Conference and the first conference title for the program since winning an OIC Championship in 1997.
 
"I'm really proud of our guys," said head coach Kelly Green. "What they've gone through. The whole year. And Oklahoma Baptist and what they've gone through, and there is still a lot of year left. We told our guys a week ago that there is three, three-game tournament weekends. We took care of last weekend, and then we've got this weekend, and we play tomorrow for the third one. And then next weekend is the conference tournament. Everything is about three-game weekends. Then it's the regional tournament. And we want to put ourselves in a position to just continue to play three-game tournaments. Our guys showed resilience in a very tough situation in these last five games, and it's only going to get tougher tomorrow."
 
"Adam's the best player in the league," said Green when asked about Dworsky's performance in the second half, "We've got the best point guard in the league, and he does it every day. If we were to practice tomorrow, he's going to be the one leading us running up and down the floor. He competes. This year he's become a better defender, a leader, all those kinds of things. When you have the best player on your team playing harder than everybody else, you've got a chance to have a great year."
 
Southeastern saw a nine-point lead evaporate over the final three minutes, with OBU's Burke Putnam connecting on a driving layup with 25 seconds to play to take a 76-75 lead.
 
The Storm would answer on the other end as Adam Dworsky would shake down Putnam and hit a layup on the right side with 14 seconds remaining to retake the lead at 77-76.
 
Putnam would go back to what had worked on his last possession, but this time would plow over Manek just outside the restricted circle, earning an offensive foul call and giving the Storm possession with nine seconds left.
 
Dworsky would then take the inbounds pass and dribble off four seconds before drawing a foul and going to the free throw line where he calmly knocked down both ends of a one-and-one opportunity, giving the Storm a 79-76 lead.
 
OBU would rocket a baseball pass the length of the floor and Jaquann Simms would get a three up, but it was off the mark and Ante Brzovic would pull down the rebound and put the game out of reach as he knocked down the first of his one-and-one opportunity with point-nine seconds left, securing the 80-76 final score.
 
Dworsky put together a 25-point outing to lead all scorers, hitting a trio of threes, while also handing out a team-high six assists.
 
Brzovic was right on his heels offensively with 22 points on 8-of-16 shooting, while completing his 12^th double-double of the year with 15 rebounds.
 
Jett Sternberger finished the night 5-of-10 from the floor with 12 points, while Kellen Manek added 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting and dished out three assists.
 
Kyle Leslie added seven rebounds of the bench as the Storm held a 36-to-34 edge on the glass as a team.
 
SE shot 50.0 percent overall from the floor, including a 53.1 percent effort in the second half.
 
The Storm fell behind early, seeing that deficit reach as many as seven points over the first six minutes, hitting the 15-8 mark with 13:50 to go in the half.
 
A Brzovic dunk would get SE moving, and by the 10:05 mark a Dworsky three had regained the lead and a pair of Brzovic free throws 20 seconds later would cap a 15-4 run to give the Storm a 23-19 lead.
 
OBU would regain the lead twice with under five minutes to play in the half, and tie the contest at 34-34 with 3:28 to play, but the Storm would grind out four of the final six points over the remainder of the half to lead 38-36 at the half.
 
The teams traded buckets in the early going of the second half before the Storm put together an 8-0 run capped by a Dworsky layup to stretch its lead to 50-43 by the 14:51 mark.
 
The lead would hit eight points on a Sternberger free throw at the 13:31 mark and three more times after that before OBU would chip the advantage to 62-58 with 9:52 remaining.
 
The momentum would go back and forth between the teams as the lead again reached weight points on a Sternberger bucket at the 7:56 mark, but the Bison would again cut the deficit to four points at the 7:15 mark.
 
Southeastern responded and push the lead out to a game-high nine points, first on a Dworsky three with5:29 to play and again on a Manek turnaround jumper with 3:15 remaining to set up the final series of events.