BELLEVILLE, ILL. – [
BOX SCORE] No. 5 Missouri Baptist men's basketball trailed at halftime against Lindenwood-Belleville on Thursday night but rallied in the final 20 minutes for a convincing 84-72 win. At 17-1 in conference play, the Spartans continue to lead the AMC by three with four games left in the regular season.
After scoring the game's first bucket, the Spartans went through an early drought in Belleville on Thursday night. They finally recorded their second field goal of the game with 14:14 left in the opening half. Fortunately, Lindenwood-Belleville was almost equally inept from the field. The score was just 9-8 Lynx after the opening eight minutes.
The lead bounced back and forth for the remainder of the first half. The Spartans were well on their way to having an advantage at the break after a technical foul on the Lynx bench with four seconds left.
Kai Woodfall knocked down the free throws to make it 33-31 MBU before Belleville's Rodarius Mitchell answered with a buzzer-beating three at the other end. That made it 34-33 Lynx heading into the locker room.
Despite the deficit, Missouri Baptist was unphased and proved it in the early portion of the second half. A three-pointer from Woodfall gave the visitors the lead for good a little less than three minutes into the frame. After being contained for just two points in the opening 20 minutes, Woodfall erupted for 15 second half points (4-6 FG, 3-4 3PT).
The Spartans began to pull away after the midway point of the half, leading by as many as 18 at one point. They remained in control in route to a 12-point win, their fifth in a row.
Kai Woodfall and
Pablo Hernandez each finished with 17 points to lead the way for MBU. Hernandez tied with
Jesus Castillo for the team-lead in rebounds. Each Spaniard pulled down nine boards.
Callum Barker (16) and
John Yaeger (12) were the others to reach double figures in a dominating night in the paint for Missouri Baptist.
The fifth ranked Spartans (25-1, 17-1 AMC) will now have a rare Saturday off before a road trip to Williams Baptist (Ark.) (Thursday, tip time 7:30 pm) and Freed-Hardeman (Tenn.) (Saturday, tip time 3 pm) next week. They return home for "Pack the Petty" night on February 21 against Columbia College.
