WARRENSBURG, Mo. (Dec. 19, 2016) -- The Central Missouri Mules used a 15-3 run midway through the second half to pull away from a game Culver-Stockton club and captured their third straight win with an 84-68 victory on Monday night at the UCM Multipurpose Building. With the win, the Mules improve to 8-2 on the season.
The game started at a frenetic pace with the teams trading buckets on seemingly every possession. At the first media timeout, the Mules led 15-10. A 10-3 spurt gave the Mules a 25-13 advantage at the 11:51 mark, but Culver-Stockton (1-11) came fighting back. The Wildcats cut the lead to seven at 25-18 by the 9:38 mark only to see the Mules push the lead back to double digits at 30-18 with 8:01 to play in the first half.
A 9-0 run by Culver-Stockton cut the UCM lead to three at 30-27 and the Wildcats later cut it to two at 35-33 with 4:39 to play. Back-to-back layups from
Kyle Wolf and
Jakob Lowrance pushed the lead back to six and a
Spencer Reaves three-point play gave the Mules a 42-33 lead late in the first half, but CSC got a jumper from Francesc Iturria with just over a minute to play to cut the lead to 42-35 at the intermission.
The Wildcats crawled even closer in the early going of the second half. The lead was cut to one at 48-47 with 16:53 to play in the game, but Wolf scored on a layup and following a bucket from
Brett O'Neil and a dunk from
Marquiez Lawrence, Reaves hit a fast break jumper and it was 56-47 Mules with 14:16 to play.
A three from Adrian Fernandez cut the UCM lead to six, but Reaves and Lowrance drilled consecutive three-pointers and the lead was back to 12. Culver-Stockton got back to within single digits two more times, but another late spurt pushed the UCM lead to as many as 16 as the Mules won their third game in a row.
Reaves led all scorers with 23 points, his sixth 20-point game of the season and third straight. Lawrence recorded his first double-double of the season and seventh of his career with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Wolf finished with 11 points as the Mules shot 47 percent from the field, going 30-of-64. UCM was 8-of-23 from three-point range for 35 percent and 16-of-25 for 64 percent at the foul line.
Culver-Stockton shot 45 percent from the field, 26-of-58, and 41 percent from three-point range going 13-of-32. The Wildcats were 3-of-4 at the charity stripe.
The Mules out-rebounded the Wildcats 42-30 and forced 19 CSC turnovers. UCM outscored CSC 42-22 in the paint and 29-11 in points off turnovers as well.
The Mules return to action on New Year's Eve, taking on Rockhurst at 1 p.m. in Kansas City.
