ARKADELPHIA – The Ouachita men's basketball team mounted a second-half comeback to take down cross-street rival Henderson State 79-74 on Thursday night to close out the first half of Great American Conference play across the street.
It was another slow start for Ouachita (12-5, 7-4 GAC) as rival Henderson State (11-6, 7-4 GAC) took a two-possession lead after the first two minutes. The Tigers tried cutting into the deficit, but each time the Reddies had an answer. By the eight-minute mark, Ouachita found itself down by double-digits. HSU's lead grew to 12 points before the Tigers went on a 5-0 run to close out the half and go into the break trailing 33-40.
The Tigers started out strong in the second half and brought the game within once possession within the first two minutes of action. However, Henderson was quick to answer and pushed its lead back out to 10 points less than four minutes later. An 8-0 Tiger run cut it down to two points just past the 11-minute mark. Back-to-back shots from Ouachita tied the game at 60 with 8:30 to go. Less than 30 seconds later, the Tigers regained the lead for the first time since the 18:36 mark of the first half.
This started a back-and-forth battle between the two teams. After trading ties and single possession leads over the following four minutes, the Reddies pushed their lead out to four points with 4:07 on the clock. The Tigers cut it down to one at the 2:45 mark, but HSU responded to push their lead to three with 2:13 remaining. Just over a minute later, Ouachita retook the lead on a dunk with 1:05 left to go. Two free throws from
Shaun Williams put the Tigers up by three with 19 seconds to go.
Reggie Martin iced the game with two more free throws with eight seconds on the clock. Ouachita completed the comeback over the Reddies and won by the final score of 79-74.
The Tigers posted a 60.7 field goal percentage that included shooting 55.6 from three-point range and 87.5 percent from the free-throw line in the second half to help secure the comeback. For the entire game, Ouachita shot 57.4 percent from the field, putting their season average back over 50 percent and restoring their spot as the only team in the GAC shooting 50 percent or better from the field.
At the halfway point of the conference slate, the Tigers sit tied for third place, and are just one game out of second place and three games out of first.
Four Tigers reached the double-digit scoring mark in Thursday night's win. Leading the way was
Hobert Grayson with 22 points on 10-of-15 shooting. Grayson also tied for the team lead in rebounds with four.
Shaun Williams was close behind with a 20-point performance that included shooting 7-of-15 from the field and 4-for-4 at the free throw line.
Gavin Snyder came up big for the Tigers with 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting highlighted by going 3-for-4 from three-point range. Snyder tied with Grayson for the team lead in rebounds with four.
Reggie Martin picked up 12 points on 4-of-7 shooting to round out the Tigers in double figures.
PJ Neal tied with Grayson and Williams for the team lead in steals with two each.
The Tigers will look to keep up their success when they start the second half of GAC action on Saturday, January 25 against the Bisons of Harding University at 3 p.m. in Bill Vining Arena.
