MOREHEAD, Ky. -- Morehead State Men's Basketball weathered another storm in its race for an OVC Championship Tuesday night. A feisty Eagle group finally fended off a determined Southern Indiana Screaming Eagle squad 66-65 at Johnson Arena as MSU remained in sole possession of first place in the league standings.
The home team remained perfect at home at 9-0 and improved to 9-2 in the OVC and 14-8 overall. MSU has now won 10 straight home contests dating back to a loss late in the season against the same USI program last season. The Eagles are now 61-6 at Johnson Arena in the past five seasons.
"It was another 'find a way' win," said head coach
Jonathan Mattox. "When you get into conference play, no one is going away. You have to continue to play, continue to fight. We just made one more play than they did down the stretch. Our players are comfortable and confident we can win these types of games because we have some experience doing so. Southern Indiana is a tough opponent. We didn't make enough free throws in the end to put it away, but we got the stop and the rebounds we needed at the end."
Morehead State built as much as a nine-point second half cushion (30-30 with 16:25 left) but then saw it whittled away by Jack Mielke and the Screaming Eagles. He hit all four of his triples in the second half, and USI eventually found itself only down one on three occasions, including the final score. Stephen Olowoniyi's jumper with 54 seconds left was the last basket, making it 66-65 MSU, but that wasn't the last of the drama.
An Eagle turnover gave USI the ball with 32 seconds remaining and a difference of two on the game and shot clock expiring. But a missed layup by Jayland Randall and a rebound gave MSU's
Tyler Brelsford a chance to ice the win with a one-and-one. He missed with 10 seconds left, and USI came down the court, only to see a ball go off a player and out of bounds. With 1.1 on the clock,
Jerone Morton was fouled and another one-and-one, but he missed as well. USI had another shot with just 0.8 left after its final timeout but Randall's final heave went awry.
MSU won the season series against USI by a combined total of three points.
Brelsford led the Eagles and tied his season-high with 19 points, while
Anouar Mellouk and Kenny White, Jr., each scored 13. Brelsford's triple with 12:38 left in the first half gave his team a 15-12 lead, and MSU never surrendered the advantage again.
Dieonte Miles came off the bench for 12 points and six rebounds. White had a team-high seven rebounds as MSU out-boarded the other Eagles 35-32.
Mielke had 12 points - all three-pointers - while Randall led USI with 16 points. Olowiniyi ended with 12 markers as USI shot 42 percent, but the home team managed to shoot 48 percent.
