SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Missouri S&T made the key second half run and held the second-leading scorer in NCAA Division II 10 points below his season average to  win for the fourth straight time Friday afternoon, taking down Missouri Southern 94-88 on the first day of the Elliott Lodging/Drury Thanksgiving Classic.

The Miners used an 11-0 run, with eight of the points coming from Quinn Poythress (Jackson, Mo./Notre Dame Regional), to take the lead for good in the second half and went eight-of-eight at the free throw line in final 1:08 to hold off the Lions, who like the Miners entered Friday's game without a loss.

Trailing 66-60 with 9:47 to go, Poythress knocked down a three-pointer out of the corner to start the Miners' decisive run.  Dulan Scott (Chicago, IL/Farragut Academy) made one-of-two at the free throw line to cut the MSSU lead to two, then a lay-up by Poythress at the 8:13 mark knotted the score at 66.

After making a free throw to put the Miners back into the lead, Poythress then scored on a backdoor lay-up off a feed from Juwan Miller (Kitchener, Ont./Huron Heights) to extend the margin to three, then Danylo Zuikov (Kiev, Ukraine/LaLumiere School) completed the run with a runner in the lane with 6:18 to go.

Poythress, who hit four-of-five from three-point range in the game, drilled another long range shot from in front of the S&T bench with four minutes to go to give the Miners a seven-point lead at 81-74.  Moments later, a put-back by Rokas Paulauskas (Talsiai, Lithuania/Hamilton Heights Acad.) after Southern's CJ Carr made just one of two free throws pushed the S&T lead to eight.

S&T missed a chance to extend its lead to double figures on its next possession and the Lions got a three-pointer from JJ Cradit to trim the margin to five with 2:18 to play.  Then trailing by seven, MSSU's Elyjah Clark scored off an offensive rebound and made the ensuing free throw to cut it the lead to four with under a minute to play. 

However, the Miners got two free throws apiece from Telloy Simon (Kitchener, Ont./St. Mary's), Miller and Dulan Scott (Chicago, IL/Farragut Academy) – to go along with two made by Randy Holmes (St. Louis, MO/Soldan International Studies) 10 seconds prior to Clark's three-point play – to ice the victory.

The first half was a back-and-forth affair as both teams were hot from the field to start the game.  The Miners made eight of their first 10 shots from the floor and were tied at 16 five minutes into play following a basket by Miller.

S&T used an 8-0 run on a three-pointer by Simon and a pair of baskets by Jalen Myers (Shorewood, IL/Minooka) to take a four-point lead just before the midway point of the half – the largest lead held by either team until the latter stages of the first half.  Missouri Southern took a six-point lead on a trey by Clark with 1:53 to go in the half, the last of 10 threes hit by the Lions in the first 20 minutes, before the Miners cut it to four before halftime on two free throws by Simon.

The Miners turned the ball over 12 times in the first half, which led to 15 points at the other end for the Lions, to offset S&T's 52 percent shooting over that span.

Southern held a five-point lead early in the second half, but a 7-0 run by S&T started by a Myers three-pointer gave the Miners the lead back with under 16 minutes to go at 53-51.   The teams continued trading the lead – in a game that featured nine ties and 19 lead changes – over the next several minutes, with the Miners regaining the advantage at 58-56 on a trey by Danylo Zuikov (Kiev, Ukraine/LaLumiere School).

The Lions answered with an 8-2 burst to take a six-point lead, but the Miners responded themselves with the 11-0 run.  

Poythress scored 16 of his team-high 19 points in the second half to lead five Miners in double figures.  Myers added 14 in the contest, while Holmes recorded a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

S&T, who went 23-of-25 at the free throw line and 11-of-20 at the free throw line, also got 10 points apiece from Miller and Scott as it reached 4-0 to open a season for the first time in 13 years.

Clark led the Lions (4-1) with 19 points while Carr, who entered Friday's game averaging 28.3 points per game, was held to 18 on 7-of-22 shooting from the field.  Southern hit 13 three-pointers in the game, but did so after firing up a school record 42 attempts and made only three-of-18 from beyond the arc in the second half.

The Miners will face Emporia State in their second game in the weekend events at 1 p.m. Saturday.