CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – Missouri S&T held a lead for much of the night against Southeast Missouri State of the Ohio Valley Conference, but the Redhawks rallied in the second half to come away with an 84-77 exhibition win over the Miners at the Show-Me Center Monday night.

The Miners led by as many as 12 points on two occasions in the second half and held an advantage as late as the 6:13 mark of the second half before the Redhawks took the lead for good with 5:18 remaining.

After Southeast had taken a 5-4 lead, the Miners outscored Southeast 17-6 over the next seven-plus minutes to take a double figure lead by the midway point of the first half following a three-pointer by Quinn Poythress (Jackson, Mo./Notre Dame Regional).  About five minutes later, Poythress hit another trey to extend the S&T lead to 12 at 32-20.

The Redhawks got the lead down to four before the half ended, but Juwan Miller (Kitchener, Ont./Huron Heights) scored with 2.3 seconds to play to give S&T a 39-33 advantage at the half.

S&T hit six of its 11 three-pointers in the opening half, three by Danylo Zuikov (Kiev, Ukraine/LaLumiere School) to help build its first half lead.

The Miners got the lead back into double figures again early in the second half, taking an 11-point lead on a three by Miller and then getting it back to 12 when Randy Holmes (St. Louis, MO/Soldan International Studies) drained a trey with 16:31 to go.  Southeast then began chipping into the margin and eventually tied the score on a basket by Jamaal Calvin with 10:46 remaining.

Denzel Mahoney, one of 11 new players on the Redhawk roster this season, gave Southeast its first lead since that initial advantage with a three-pointer with 9:21 to go before the teams traded the lead over the next three minutes. 

With the score tied at 65, Ervin Sarajlic (St. Louis, Mo./Oakville) knocked down a three-pointer to put the Miners back in front, but Daniel Simmons answered with a game-tying three on the Redhawks' next trip down the floor and hit another following a missed shot by S&T to put Southeast up for good.

The Miners got 17 points from Miller and 16 from Zuikov as they shot 45.1 percent for the game, one where S&T also outrebounded the Redhawks by a 38-28 margin.   Rokas Paulauskas (Talsiai, Lithuania/Hamilton Heights Acad.) had 11 of those boards to go with nine points, while Holmes also finished with nine.

However, Southeast shot 58.6 percent in the second half and 50.9 percent for the game, while also forcing S&T into 21 turnovers over the course of the night.

The Miners will open their 2016-17 regular season schedule next Tuesday when they host Principia in a 7 p.m. game at the Bullman Multi-Purpose Building.  It will be the first of three home games next week for the Miners to open the campaign.