Box Score (HTML) | Season Stats | Photo Gallery
WARRENSBURG, Mo. -- Preston Brunz led four Mules in double figures and tied his career-high with 17 points as sixth-ranked Central Missouri beat Alderson Broaddus 73-62 on Monday night at the UCM Multipurpose Building. The Mules opened the game on a 19-2 run then withstood a rally from the Battlers to improve to 9-0 on the season.
The game was tied 2-2 with 18:01 to play in the half when the Mules scored 17 straight points to lead 19-2 at the 11:05 mark of the first half. Alderson Broaddus' (6-3) first made basket came on a Imanol Artinano layup with 10:56 to play in the half and made it 19-4 in favor of UCM.
The bucket by Artinano started a 14-5 run for the Battlers that cut the UCM lead to 24-16 with 5:06 to play in the half. A 10-2 run by the Mules pushed the lead back to 16 and UCM would go into halftime leading 38-25.
A 5-2 ABU spurt out of the intermission cut the UCM lead to 10 at 40-30, but a three from
Kyle Wolf pushed the lead back to 13. A Richard Lemon layup on the other end made it an 11-point game and the Battlers started to chip away at the Mule lead.
Thylas Perkins made back-to-back layups to cut the UCM lead to eight with 14:33 to play in the game and a Lemon layup made it a six-point game with 13:42 to play.
Dillon Deck made a layup to push the lead back to eight, but Devin Colston drained one of his three three-pointers and it was a five-point lead at 49-44 with 12:01 to play.
Brunz drained a triple and the lead was back to eight at the 11:00 mark. UCM pushed the lead to nine with 8:09 to play in the game on a Wolf layup from
Brennen Hughes. A three from Malcolm Tatum and two free throws cut the UCM lead to five, but Brunz answered again with another three to give the Mules a 62-54 lead with 4:47 to play.
Colston score on a layup with 3:16 to play to cut the lead to six, but Brunz hit his fifth three-pointer of the game to push the lead to nine and Deck's layup with 2:12 to play made it an 11-point game. The Battlers got back to within eight, but a
Rakeem Dickerson layup and two more free throws from Dickerson made it a 12-point game as the Mules went on to the 11-point win.
Brunz finished 5-of-8 from the field, including 5-of-7 from beyond the arc to tie his career-high with 17 points. Wolf finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds for the first double-double of his career. Dickerson had 14 points and five assists and Deck added 14 points off the bench.
The Mules shot 52 percent from the field going 27-of-51. They were 7-of-19 from beyond the arc for 36 percent and shot 12-of-16 at the foul line for 75 percent. UCM out-rebounded ABU 33-25 and outscored the Battlers 36-20 in the paint.
Colston led ABU with a game-high 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting. Perkins had 13 points, while Lemon and Tatum added 11 and 10, respectively.
The Battlers were 20-of-51 from the field for 39 percent and 9-of-27 from three-point range for 33 percent. ABU shot 13-of-17 at the free throw line for 76 percent.
The win gives the Mules 15 straight wins dating back to last season and 32 consecutive wins at home. The Mules are 58-1 in their last 59 non-conference home games.
UCM will return to action next Monday, Dec. 15 hosting Culver-Stockton at 7:30 p.m. at the Multipurpose Building. The game can be heard live on 1450 KOKO, 98.5 The Bar and warrensburgradio.com with Greg Hassler on the call. A pay-per-view webcast is also available on the UCM Stretch Internet portal at portal.stretchinternet.com/ucmo/
