ROLLA, Mo. – After a promising opening half and first seven minutes of the second half Monday evening, Missouri S&T's men's basketball team went into a scoring drought at the same time that Northeastern State got rolling on the offensive end and the RiverHawks came away with an 80-65 win at Gibson Arena.

The Miners built as much as a nine-point lead late in the first half and still held an advantage with 13:26 to play after a three-point play by Juwan Miller (Kitchener, Ont./Huron Heights), but were outscored 22-3 over the 10 minutes that followed and dropped to 2-7 on the season.

S&T fell behind by as much as seven early in the contest, but used an 8-0 run to take the lead after Dulan Scott (Chicago, IL/Farragut Academy) made a pair of free throws at the 8:44 mark of the opening half.  Later in the half, trailing by four, S&T went on a 12-0 surge to take an eight-point lead as four different Miners scored during the course of the run.

The Miners would take their largest lead of the half on a steal and lay-in by Miller with 1:14 to go, but the RiverHawks' Bradley George scored the final seven points of the half – two on a steal and a dunk and a three-pointer just before the first half buzzer sounded – to bring NSU back to within two by the intermission.

S&T would hold the lead for most of the first seven minutes of the second half, extending it as much as six at one point, but the RiverHawks drew even at 54 on a three-pointer by Trent Cantrell at the 13:11 mark and took the lead for good on their next trip down the floor on a dunk by Aaron Givens.

Ervin Sarajlic (St. Louis, MO/Oakville) hit a three-pointer with 11:41 to play to cut a four-point NSU lead down to one, but those would be the Miners last points for the next eight minutes as the RiverHawks rattled off 15 straight points to take control of the contest.

Miller led four Miners in double figures with 15 points, while Sarajlic and Jalen Myers (Shorewood, IL/Minooka) – playing for the first time in since Nov. 13 – had 12 points apiece.  Scott was the fourth Miner in double figures with 11 points in his return to the Miner lineup.

NSU's Caleb Smith led all scorers in the game with 25 points as the RiverHawks (6-4) shot 53.6 percent from the field in the second half and finished the night at 49.1 percent to S&T's 41.8 percent mark.

Missouri S&T will return to action on Dec. 30 when it faces Southern Illinois Edwardsville in an exhibition contest in Edwardsville, Ill., at 3 p.m.  The Miners resume their regular season slate and return to Great Lakes Valley Conference play on Jan. 3 at Rockhurst.