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CEDAR CITY — The Southern Utah Thunderbirds and Utah Tech Trailblazers met in a rivalry matchup Thursday night.
With a 75-65 victory, the Thunderbirds earned their first Western Athletic Conference win of the season and improved their overall record to 6-11. Utah Tech now sits at 7-10 on the year.
The majority of Southern Utah's offense came from Dominique Ford and Prophet Johnson. The pair scored 23 points each, though they only made five and four field goals, respectively. Both found a way to get to the free-throw line, where Ford went 10-of-12 and Johnson went 15-of-15.
Utah Tech had four players — Jaylen Searles, Noa Gonsalves, Tanner Christensen and Caleb Stearman — reach double-digit scoring. Searles led the team with 13 points.
The first half saw its fair share of missed shots and errant passes, though. The Trailblazers shot just 10-of-31 from the floor, while the Thunderbirds went 9-of-30. Neither team led by more than 6 points, and the see-saw half ended with Southern Utah on top 31-28.
The game kept its back-and-forth nature in the second half, though Southern Utah controlled the lead for all 20 minutes.
When the Thunderbirds had its advantage slip to just 1 point, Southern Utah hit three straight unanswered 3-pointers to reestablish the momentum. It was the beginning of a 13-0 run that lasted less than three minutes. After that, they made sure not to let the lead drop to less than 7 points for the rest of the game.
Foul trouble and long-range shooting were Utah Tech's downfalls. The Trailblazers committed 27 fouls compared to the Thunderbirds' 19, and had Hamed Olayinka, Christensen and Stearman all foul out of the game. That allowed Southern Utah to go 30-of-35 from the charity stripe, accounting for 40% of the team's total points.
The Trailblazers shot just 18.8% from 3-point range while allowing Southern Utah to shoot 31.8%.
Utah Tech is now sixth in the WAC standings while Southern Utah is still in last place at 11th. Both teams will continue conference play Saturday when the Trailblazers play Utah Valley and the Thunderbirds play California Baptist.
