RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – The Southern Arkansas men's basketball team was 11-for-14 (79%) from the free throw line over the final six minutes of the game to help themselves come away with an 83-80 road win over Arkansas Tech on Saturday afternoon inside the Tucker Coliseum in Russellville.
 
The win for the Muleriders (8-6, 5-3 GAC) extends their winning streak to four-games, all in Great American Conference play, and is also SAU's first win at Tech since the 2006-07 season.
 
For the Muleriders, the clutch free throws down the stretch started with 5:47 left in the second half as Denarious Lockhart made good on a pair of attempts from the line to break what was then a 64-all tie. From there, the Muleriders would remain out in front of the Wonder Boys (9-5, 4-4 GAC) until the final horn thanks to their success at the charity stripe.
 
A couple of minutes prior to that late-game sequence, the Muleriders had to fight their way back into the game after they saw a 12-point first-half lead turn into a nine-point deficit with 13:32 left in the second half. Over the next 1:46, the Muleriders would engineer a 5-0 run to pull to within four points, 58-54.
 
A pair of Wonder Boy free throws followed to snap that Mulerider run and stretch the Tech lead back out to six points, but an 8-0 run over the next 2:54 gave SAU their first lead since late in the first half. The Wonder Boys would tie the game up on two occasions after that, but never regained a lead in the game.
 
Statistically in the game, the Muleriders would shoot 66% from the free throw line (19-of-29) and 45% overall from the floor (28-of-62) which included a 44% success rate from beyond the arc (8-of-18). While shooting over 40% from long range for the game, the Muleriders actually started the game off red-hot and were near 90% from beyond the arc as seven of their first eight attempts found the bottom of the net.
 
Of those seven early makes, Deon Andrews accounted for five of them as he went 5-for-5 from deep over the first six minutes of the game. The other two makes from deep came from Jaron Davis. Both Andrews and Davis would finish the game as the top-two scorers for the Muleriders as Davis had a game-high 22 points while Andrews scored 19 points, respectively.
 
Two other Muleriders would finish in double figures with Alvin Braddock scoring a career-high 17 points on 8-of-12 shooting. Denarious Lockhart rounded out double-digit scoring with 10 points of his own. Lockhart has now scored in double figures in five of six games played this season.
 
The Muleriders will now prepare for another quick turnaround as they will take on Arkansas-Monticello on the road in two days' time for "Rivalry Monday in the GAC". Tip-off for the game is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. inside the Steelman Fieldhouse in Monticello.