ST. LOUIS, Mo. - In the first of back-to-back trips to St. Louis for conference play, William Woods (8-5, 1-1 AMC) was unable to overcome its first-half cold streak, falling 60-54 to Missouri Baptist (10-5, 1-0 AMC) in a heated battle.
Gacoby Jones Jr. led the Owls with 15 points and
Henry Shannon III collected his third double-double of the year.
Francis Okwuosah opened the scoring for Woods with a fastbreak layup off a miss by MBU, but the Spartans answered with an 11-2 run over the next nine minutes.
Lavel Harris snapped the run with a basket at the 12:39 mark, and the teams traded the lead back-and-forth twice down the stretch despite shared struggles offensively.
The shooting woes continued for both teams after the break, with MBU only able to make one of its first five shots, a triple to extend a two-point halftime lead to 26-21 and Woods missing its first three shots.
After cutting the deficit to three with a runner in the lane at 16:50, Shannon grabbed a rebound on a missed triple by D'Mari Wiltz and passed to Jones in transition. Jones found Shannon wide open underneath the basket for a dunk to cut the deficit to one, then Harris pestered Wiltz into a turnover and laid it in to put Woods up 27-26.
Francis Okwuosah capped off a strong defensive stop for WWU, deflecting an entry pass with
Nate Schwartze able to grab the ball and play it off of a Spartan player to give the Owls possession.
After the whistle blew for the out-of-bounds call, words were exchanged between the MBU bench and WWU players, escalating into an on-court altercation that took several minutes to sort out. Following the officials' discussion, the bench players for both teams were removed from the contest, leaving the final 15:08 to be decided by the five on-court players at the point of interruption.
Breven McMullen knocked down two of four free throws resulting from technical fouls charged during the altercation to reclaim a 28-27 lead for the Spartans, but Woods was able to force McMullen into back-to-back turnovers around the 12-minute mark to take a 37-33 lead with 11:41 to play.
The lead ping-ponged back and forth several times down the stretch, but after leading 54-53 with 2:39 to play, Woods was unable to find its range, with Missouri Baptist scoring the final seven points of the contest.
The Owls return to St. Louis on Tuesday night, facing off against Harris-Stowe State University in a 7:30 p.m. tipoff.
