It's been a long time since there was so much excitement surrounding a basketball game between Henderson State and Ouachita Baptist, but the stands were full to capacity at Vining Arena Monday night as the Reddies crossed Highway 7 and beat the Tigers 80-70.
With the win, Henderson ended a four-game losing streak to the Tigers but more importantly improved to 10-6 overall and 5-1 in the Great American Conference to remain in first-place in the league standings.
After having 31 points just two days ago against Arkansas Tech, Denzel Lyles scored a game-high 23 points including hitting 6-of-10 three-point field goals.
But it wasn't all Lyles, as the entire Reddie team made major contributions as Andrew Ensley added 18 points with 8 rebounds.
Josh French was also instrumental having 8 points and 4 rebounds, while Jonathan Fitzgerald scored 8 points and Matt Nicholson scored 7 to go along with 6 defensive rebounds.
“First I just want to give a shout out to the students and our boosters for the support tonight,” said HSU Coach Doug Nichols. “We outnumbered them and were louder. There is no doubt we fed off our fans tonight.”
Nichols felt that the Reddies played its best defense of the year and that was a major factor in the win.
“Our guards locked in and we executed our defense well,” added Nichols. “The big adjustment came in the second-half as we did not allow one transition score. Going from giving up 15 transition points in the first-half to none in the second-half was the difference in the game.
OBU, 11-5 overall and 4-2 in the GAC, held a 34-32 lead at the break after Lyles hit a 3-pointer just before the end of the half to cut the Reddie deficit to two.
Lyles picked up where he left off to begin the second-half hitting another trifecta to give the Reddies the lead for good.
Henderson ended the game shooting 50 percent from the field converting on 30 of 60 attempts, including 8-of-19 from the 3-point arc.
OBU was hit on 42 percent from the floor making 22-of-53 attempts while nailing 8 of 22 treys.
OBU was led in scoring by Austin Mitchell's 17 points.
