David Sturner puts down a dunk during the second half of SOU's 86-74 win over OIT.
ASHLAND – The number of big plays made Saturday night was worthy of the rivalry an overflow crowd came to see at Bob Riehm Arena.
In the end, the Oregon Tech men's basketball team ran out of them and seventh-ranked Southern Oregon did not. Make it five straight wins for the Raiders over the Owls after the latest, an 86-74 decision in front of 1,473 who had to wait patiently for the home team to pull away.
Eric Thompson scored six of his game-high 20 points down the stretch to seal the outcome, but the Raiders (17-4 overall, 6-3 Cascade Conference) needed help across the board to tip the scales.
Tim Weber had 13 points and eight rebounds; Jeff Bush added eight points, nine boards and four assists; Kyle Tedder scored 13 with three steals; and Dex Daum and Jordan West poured in 12 apiece with the latter grabbing five rebounds of the bench.
Trailing 58-57, Bush's layup with 12:47 left launched a 13-5 run that put SOU in control for good. Tedder put the finishing touches on the rally, squaring up his defender and drilling a contested 3-pointer that gave the Raiders their largest lead, 71-62, with 8:14 left.
Until that run, there had been 19 ties and 11 lead changes.
"That's a very good win because they're miles ahead of where they were when we played them in November," SOU coach Brian McDermott said. "I'm just really happy with our bench play. And it took us a long time, but we were pretty balanced once we got to playing where we wanted to play."
Four scored in double figures for the Owls (11-10, 4-4) to keep them in it: Duncan Schramm (14), Derek Evans (13), Kyle Waits (12) and Austen Flint (10).
The Owls had their biggest advantage at 30-25 when Schramm hit a 3-pointer and led until Thompson's free throws made it 43-42 at halftime. The big shots kept coming in the second half, though, as Evans' 4-point play put OIT up 55-54 and, after a Daum 3-pointer on SOU's ensuing possession, Schramm's triple gave the Owls the lead right back with 13:54 to go.
That's when SOU made its move. OIT helped with four turnovers in a four-minute span and didn't make a 3 the rest of the way, finishing 6-for-22.
"I thought in the second half we contested shots way better," McDermott said. "They still made some but we made sure they were tough ones."
OIT coach Danny Miles came in looking for the 999th win of his career. What he has now instead is his longest losing streak against his alma mater in 43 years with the Owls.
SOU went 27-for-60 from the field compared to OIT's 28-for-57. But the Raiders had a 27 to 12 edge at the free-throw line, made possible by holding the Owls to five offensive rebounds and turning the ball over just nine times – their third-lowest total of the season.
After the Owls cut into 80-68 SOU lead with six straight points and had the ball with 1:15 left, David Sturner's big block of Flint's attempt at the rim wrapped things up.
The Raiders will remain home next weekend, welcoming in 21st-ranked and first-place College of Idaho on Friday and Eastern Oregon on Saturday.