BETHANY - Sometimes, words are not enough to adequately describe a scene. Sometimes, you just had to be there. That was the case on Saturday as Southern Nazarene capped a four-game home stand with an 88-63 romp over the East Central Tigers.
The Crimson Storm (13-5, 7-3 GAC) avenged an 81-80 loss to the Tigers (12-4, 6-4 GAC) back on Nov. 23 with an incredible display of offense. SNU shot a season-high 61.4 percent from the field including 50 percent from 3-point range, where they knocked down 13 shots.
It was the best shooting performance for the Crimson Storm as a team since they shot 62 percent in a 91-74 win over Arkansas-Monticello on Nov. 18, 2017.
No one was more spectacular than senior Jhonathan Dunn. One game after eclipsing the 2,000 career point mark against Oklahoma Baptist, Dunn exploded for a career-high 42 points against the Tigers. Despite being saddled with foul trouble in the first half, Dunn went 17-of-23 from the field, including 5-of-8 from 3-point range. It took the senior from San Antonio just 30 minutes to do all that damage. It was the second-highest single game total in SNU history.
Micah Speight finished with 13 points and nine assists becoming the seventh player in Great American Conference history to eclipse the 1,500 career point mark. Last week, Speight became just the third player to record 500 career assists. It's been a season of many achievements for the two seniors, and several more marks lie in front of them.
Ashton Charles chipped in 12 points off the bench and Tyler Williams, in his second game back from injury, knocked down three 3-pointers to give him five in two games.
Gerren Jackson had 17 points and Bishop Coulter also had 17 points off the bench to lead the Tigers. Camron Talley, who came in averaging 23.4 points per game, was held to 15 points on 4-of-10 shooting. The Crimson Storm did a tremendous job limiting his looks at the basket. It was the second-fewest field goals Talley had attempted in a game this season.
The Crimson Storm got off to a blazing start as they forced an ECU timeout just over a minute into the game after an 8-0 run to get things started. Dunn was at his best from the beginning as he scored 13 points in the first 3:34 of the game to stake SNU to a 16-5 lead.
Dunn had 15 points and SNU a 25-13 lead when Dunn picked up his second foul with 11:30 remaining in the half. Yet even with Dunn on the bench, the closest the Tigers ever got was three points at 35-32. A quick 5-0 burst pushed the lead back to eight and ECU never seriously threatened again, as SNU took a 44-37 lead into the locker room.
Coming out of the break, the Crimson Storm began to pour it on, as a 15-2 run over the first four minutes of the half gave SNU a 20-point lead at 59-39 with 15:49 remaining.
Every mini-run from the Tigers was met by an SNU response. The Crimson Storm began to put together highlight plays as the half wore on, punctuated by an alley-top pass from Speight to Dunn for a thunderous dunk that brought the Sawyer Center crowd to its feet.
The Crimson Storm are on the road next week for a pair of games as they travel to Arkansas-Monticello and Southern Arkansas. First up will be the Weevils on Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. before SNU makes the drive over to take on Southern Arkansas on Saturday at 3 p.m.
You can hear all the action on Crossover Radio Sports through the Crossover Radio Sports app, available in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
