Box Score

BETHANY, Okla. — For the second straight night Southern Nazarene's leading scorer came off the bench and the Crimson Storm wouldn't have it any other way. Jon West couldn't be more blue collar if he tried as the junior scored a game-high 17 points and pulled down three rebounds as SNU gritted through another tight conference game with a 55-51 win over John Brown.

The Crimson Storm (16-3, 9-2 SAC) led for just more than five minutes the entire game, but led when it counted, the final 3:32.

With 2:03 left to play, West looked to have started to put the Golden Eagles (15-5, 7-5 SAC) away, but Coleson Rakestraw, who scored a team-high 15 points for John Brown, buried another trey to pull JBU within one, at 52-51, with 1:36 left. An SNU turnover gave the Golden Eagles a chance to take the lead with under a minute to play, but Jeremy Lightfoot came up with two huge blocks and then Xavier Alexander hit two clutch free throws to give SNU a 54-51 lead with 22 seconds left.

JBU quickly raced down to the other end and Sam Bartlett had a wide open lay up that would have cut it to two, but missed from point blank range. C.J. Henry drove in the final nail with a free throw to secure the win.

“We responded well in the second half after a rough first half and put together enough stretches of good basketball to get out of here with the win,” said Bohac.

West went 6-for-8 on the night from the field and went 2-for-4 from beyond the arc. The junior was also perfect from the line going 3-for-3. Alexander was also in double figures with 15 points and corralled six boards and handed out four assists.

SNU also posted four blocks, three of which came from Lightfoot.

The Storm shot 41.3 percent (19-46) from the field, 46.2 in the second half, and leaned on 28 points in the paint after struggling from outside for most of the night. SNU also got 28 points from the bench compared to just 15 from JBU.

“Much of our struggles tonight were do to how physical John Brown was,” said Bohac. “It's not so much physical that they are grabbing you on the defensive end, but the way they run their offense is extremely physical. John Brown is the best screening team in our league and has tremendous patience. It took a toll on us and I felt like we lost our composure a bit in the first half.”

SNU trailed 28-22 at the half and fell behind as much as 10, at 34-24, with 17:11 left to play as JBU completed a 9-2 run, but SNU answered back with a with a 15-5 run to tie it at 39 with 11:31 remaining. After two more ties Bartlett gave JBU a 46-45 lead before Alexander gave SNU the lead for good with back-to-back jumpers.

The Crimson Storm close out the first half of the season just a half-game back of Oklahoma Baptist. Those two teams will play Saturday after SNU hosts St. Gregory's for the final time this season with an 8 p.m. tip off set for Thursday.