BARTLESVILLE, Okla. — Three times Southern Nazarene entered the Great American Conference Championship and the last three years the Crimson Storm made a quick exit in the first round. The last two came at the hands of Ouachita Baptist, but Thursday night the first hurdle in a lot of goals for the Storm were cleared with an 80-66 win over Ouachita Baptist in the quarterfinals.
 
No. 10 Southern Nazarene (25-2) got a combined 48 points from Noah Starkey, Micah Speight and Jhonathan Dunn and 20 points off the bench as SNU shot 55.8 percent from the field.
 
Starkey had a game-high 20 points on 7-of-8 shooting from the field and he was 6-for-7 at the line. He also added three blocks and a steal. Dunn finished with 15 points while Speight had 13 points, seven rebounds, three assists and three steals. Quaylon Newton also had eight points and 13 rebounds.
 
Ashton Charles had seven points off of the bench while Coleman Edwards had six.
 
The Storm led from start to finish. SNU opened the game on a 15-4 run and slowly increased the lead from there. Southern Nazarene took its biggest lead in the first half at the 5:44 mark at 32-12. The Tigers scored eight straight to cut it to 32-20 with 3:24 in the first before the Storm took a 37-24 lead at the break.
 
SNU led by as much as 23 in the second half and had its biggest lead of the game at 55-32 with 13:55 to play. Ouachita never came closer than 14 the rest of the night.
 
SNU went 24-for-43 from the field and 7-for-17 from beyond the arc.  The Storm were also 25-for-33 from the line.