BETHANY, Okla. — After playing behind one of Southern Nazarene's top scorers in recent years, Micah Speight knew he would have to step up and fill in a starting role in the 2017-18 season. Throw on top that SNU's leading scorer, and GAC Freshman of the Year, Jhonathan Dunn sat out the season opener due to an injury, and the pressure looked to be mounting on Speight to carry the load in the backcourt.
 
Speight's reaction; he just scored a career-high 26 points and hit a career-high six 3-pointers with four coming in the first half as SNU rolled in its season opener 69-54 over Southwestern College (Kan.). Speight also had a career-high eight rebounds as he was 8-for-19 from the field and a perfect 4-for-4 at the line. The Storm (1-0) also got a career-high 19 points and 11 rebounds from Noah Starkey. The junior was 8-for-11 from the floor and 3-for-3 from the line.
 
Southern Nazarene was 11-for-15 from the line and out rebounded Southwestern 38-30. SNU shot 43.3 percent from the field as it was 26-for-30 and went 6-for-19 from downtown.  
 
The Storm opened the game on a 12-2 run and eventually pushed it to 22-9 with 8:09 left in the first. Southwestern though scored 12 straight to cut it to 22-21 with 5:47 left in the half. SNU answered with eight straight, including a trey from Micah Speight to lead 30-21, but SC answered right back with seven to make it 30-28 at the half.
 
The Storm took a 34-29 lead early in the second half, but the Moundbuilders went on a 12-2 run to take their first lead of the night at 41-36 with 15:26 to play. Noah Starkey sparked an 18-5 run to put SNU up 54-46 and the run was capped by Speight's fifth 3-pointer. Southwestern came no closer than seven the rest of the way.