SAN ANTONIO – The 10th-ranked Trinity men's basketball team opened up its Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference home weekend with an 87-70 win over Southwestern University on Friday night.

The Tigers improved to 17-1 overall and 8-1 in SCAC play, while the Pirates fell to 1-16 this season and 0-8 in conference games. After struggling from the outside in a closely contested first half, Trinity cruised to victory with a decisive 49-36 margin in the second half. The Tigers scored 50 of their 87 points in the paint and held a 10-point advantage in second-chance points as well.

Christian Green (San Antonio, Texas / Veterans Memorial) led Trinity with a career-high 25 points in the game, adding eight rebounds and a pair of assists. He connected on 10-of-15 from the field and knocked down all five of his free throws. Braxton Barry (Houston, Texas / Westbury Christian) notched a solid double-double with 11 points and a team-best 11 boards.

Jacob Harvey (Huffman, Texas / Hargrave) tied for the team lead with four assists in the game, while also scoring 12 points. Tanner Brown (San Antonio, Texas / Brandeis) scored 11 points in his return to the lineup, while Dean Balo (Dallas, Texas / JJ Pearce) came off the bench with 11 points of his own. Jacob Millhouse (Plano, Texas / Independence) knocked down a pair of three-pointers in the game and tied Harvey for the team lead with four assists.

The Rundown
Southwestern came out strong at the start, taking its largest lead of the first half (7-2) in the opening two-plus minutes of the game. Trinity rattled off eight unanswered points after that, led by a pair of three-pointers from Millhouse to take a 10-7 lead. Outside of a brief tie game at 12-12, the Tigers remained in the lead for the next several minutes. A three-pointer from Balo gave Trinity a 22-16 lead near the midway point of the first period, but Southwestern rallied with seven straight points to take the lead with just over seven minutes left before halftime.

The teams traded the lead several times the rest of the half, but Trinity scored seven of the final nine points to take a 38-34 halftime lead. The Pirates kept the Tigers close by shooting 48% from the field in the opening half, while Trinity struggled from beyond the arc – shooting just 3-for-16 (18.8%) from three-point range over the first 20 minutes. Trinity's defense did manage five steals among seven forced turnovers.

The Pirates were within one point early in the second half, but it didn't take long for the Tigers to blow the game wide open. The lead jumped to nine points (52-43) just over five minutes into the period as Green and Barry accounted for 12 straight Trinity points. After Southwestern hit a three to draw within six points, Brown and Harvey knocked down consecutive triples to answer and take the lead up to 12. The Tiger lead was never less than eight the rest of the way.

Trinity controlled the game the rest of the way, with Southwestern's final push coming near the six-minute mark. The Pirates made it a 75-66 game with a three-point play, but Green answered with a thundering dunk and a three-point play of his own to push the lead back to 13 points with under five minutes remaining. The Tigers closed out the period strong and led by double digits the rest of the way.

Coach Speak
"The Stachey Friday streak continues," exclaimed Head Coach Jimmy Smith.

Up Next
The Tigers will close out the weekend by hosting Texas Lutheran University tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 p.m.