By: John Kean, Sports Information Director
ST. LOUIS, Mo. – All season, the Missouri S&T men's basketball team has been able to put a number of dubious streaks behind them.
On Thursday night, the last two that they needed to eliminate were taken care of as the Miners beat Missouri-St. Louis 70-57 at the Mark Twain Building.
The Miners last won a road game in conference play on Feb. 2, 2005 – when they were still a member of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association – and had not won a game over a team from the Great Lakes Valley Conference's West Division since becoming a member of the conference in the 2005-06 season.
Both streaks went down in one fell swoop Thursday night as the Miners were able to answer a 9-0 Missouri-St. Louis run with a decisive 14-point run in the second half and went on to the eventual 13-point win.
The Miners set the tone by frustrating the Tritons with their zone defense in the first half, holding the hosts to 25 percent shooting and with only two field goals in the final 13:43 of the half.
UMSL led 14-13 after Tim Green made two free throws at the 11:46 mark, but the Miners moved in front for good at 17-15 on Curtis Mosley (Chicago, Ill./)'s layin with 7:51 to go in the period. Mosley's basket started a 14-4 run that allowed S&T to build its biggest lead of the first half at 29-21 after Owain Hall (Kingston, Jamica/)'s putback with 47 seconds remaining before halftime.
The Tritons were within six with 13 minutes to go after a fast break layup by Tim Green, but Hall answered for the Miners with a three-pointer to put his team back up by nine. Moments later, Hall escaped from a scrum with the ball and fed Adam Knollmeyer (Linn, Mo./Linn) for a dunk that gave S&T its largest lead of the game with 12:09 to play at 45-34.
However, UMSL cut into that lead quickly as it got three-pointers from Jeremy Brown and Ryan Bechtel, then after Alex Jackson missed a pair of free throws, the Tritons got the rebound and Brown hit another trey to cut the lead to two.
Mosley stemmed the run by knocking down a three seconds after Brown's basket to put the Miners back up by five. After the Tritons cut the margin to three on a basket by Jackson, the Miners ran off 14 straight points that started with consecutive three-points from Casey Noll (St. Louis, Mo./Oakville), Mosley and Marquis Jones (St. Louis, Mo./Cardinal Ritter).
S&T led 62-45 after Mosley converted a three-point play at the 5:11 mark and eventually led by as many as 20 in the final two minutes.
Mosley led a contingent of four Miners in double figures with 21 points and he added six assists and five steals. Knollmeyer posted 14, Noll 13 and Hall added 11 off the bench for the Miners, who shot 55 percent in the second half and 48.9 percent for the game.
Green led the Tritons (12-10, 4-8 GLVC) with 15 as he was the only UMSL player in double figures.
The Miners (8-12, 3-9 GLVC) head back to the road Saturday as they will face Rockhurst in a 3 p.m. contest in Kansas City, Mo.
