ASHLAND, Ohio – A struggle from the floor in the second half, coupled with a huge performance by Wendell Davis, sent Missouri S&T to defeat in the 2015-16 season opener Friday night as Ashland handed the Miners an 82-73 defeat at the Holiday Inn Exempt Tournament.

Davis scored a career-high 34 points – hitting 13-of-16 from the field – to carry the Eagles Friday.  He had 19 of those points in the second half, including eight in a stretch where Ashland withstood a Miner comeback effort from an 11-point deficit early in the second half.

Ashland led 58-47 four minutes into the second half when the Miners made a 9-2 run to get to within four.  Desmond Buerge (Carthage, Mo./Carthage) hit a three-pointer at the 13:24 mark to draw S&T to five at 60-55, then hit the second of two free throws nearly a minute later to make it a four-point game.

However, Davis drained a trey on the Eagles' next trip down the floor, then converted a traditional three-point play with 10:29 to go to push the Ashland lead back to nine.

The Eagles' largest lead in the second half was 13 and the Miners – who shot only 34.5 percent in the second half after hitting 48.5 percent in the first 20 minutes – could only get as close as eight down the stretch.

Ashland led for much of the first 10 minutes of the game, but S&T rallied and took its first lead at 20-19 on a three-pointer by Buerge at the 10:40 mark.   Ashland regained the lead moments later on a Davis three-point basket and extended its lead to as much as seven by the 6:08 mark of the half.

S&T clawed back and tied the score on a pair of Quinn Poythress (Jackson, Mo./Notre Dame Regional) free throws with 1:18 to play in the half and the game went into the intermission tied at 42.

B.J. McLaughlin (Florissant, Mo./Hazelwood Central) answered a Davis basket at the start of the second half with a three-pointer to give the Miners a 45-44 lead, but the Eagles scored eight of the next nine points to take the lead for good.

Zach Ellis (St. Louis, Mo./Whitfield School) led three Miners in double figures with 16 points, while McLaughlin finished with 13 points and Buerge ended up with 10.  S&T finished the game at 41.9 percent from the field and hit eight-of-24 from three-point range, but hit only two-of-10 from beyond the arc in the second half.

Ashland, who also got 15 points from Boo Osborne and 12 from Adrian Cook, shot 55.4 percent for the game overall, but did struggle from long range (three-of-15) and at the free throw line, where it made 17-of-33.

The Miners will play their second game in Ohio Saturday afternoon when they face Lake Erie in a noon (Central time) contest.  Lake Erie dropped a 72-69 decision to eighth-ranked Indianapolis Friday on Lucas Barker's three-pointer at the buzzer.