BETHANY, Okla. — One after another the wins are starting to pile up at the right time for Southern Nazarene and Monday night was no different. Despite the dropping temperature outside, the Crimson Storm continued to have a hot hand in a 76-52 win over Science and Arts.
With the win, SNU (18-4, 12-2) tied a season-high with six straight and have the longest streak going in the conference.
Abbey Marra nearly set two career-highs as the junior scored a career-high 22 points and pulled down 17 rebounds, which tied a career-high. She had six of those rebounds on the offensive end. Marra went 8-for-15 from the field and 6-for-7 from the free throw line.
The Crimson Storm as a team went 25-for-62 (.403) from the field and fired 4-for-9 (.444) from 3-point range. SNU was also 22-of-29 at the line. The Storm scored 22 points off of 16 USAO turnovers and gave up the ball just nine times. SNU's defense held the Drovers (6-15, 2-12 SAC) to just 30.2 percent from the field and 18.8 percent from downtown.
The Storm quickly jumped out to a 22-9 lead early in the first half before taking their biggest lead of the first half at 29-12 on a Bottger trey with 8:05 left. SNU matched the 17-point lead again with 1:15 remaining in the first half on a Marra jumper in the paint, but USAO got a late three to make it a 41-27 game at the half.
The Drovers completed an 11-2 run early in the second half with Vernisha Moss hit two free throws to close the gap to 43-35, but that was as close as USAO came. Johnson hit two free throws and then added a bucket in the paint to start a game-ending 17-5 run.
SNU will now host Wayland Baptist, Thursday, at 6 p.m. in a SAC contest.
