BETHANY, Okla. — Henderson State gave No. 14 Southern Nazarene all it wanted on Saturday afternoon and tied the game with the defending Great American Conference champions with under 10 minutes to go, but the Crimson Storm took control down the stretch and pulled away to win 84-72 at the Sawyer Center.

Rel Johnson led the Reddies with 15 points while Chris Parker had 14. Raekwon Rogers and Joshua Jones chipped in 12 and 11 points, respectively. 

Henderson (8-5, 3-4) hung around in the opening 20 minutes but shot just 30.6 percent in the first half and 1-for-12 from three as Southern Nazarene (12-2, 5-1) built a 35-25 lead at the break. The Reddies looked re-energized to start the second half, though, and began to chip away at the deficit, eventually using two 3-pointers from Johnson to cap a 23-13 run and tie the game at 48-48 with 11:30 to go.

HSU tied things up again at 50-50 with under 10 minutes to play and the two teams went back-and-forth over the next several possessions. However, with SNU up 59-55 with 7:46 remaining, the Crimson Storm slowly began to pull away, as 10-straight points from reigning GAC Player of the Year Jhonathan Dunn helped SNU stretch its lead back out to 69-59 with under five minutes left. 

A 3-pointer from Parker with 2:56 to go to cut the lead back to single digits at 71-62 for Henderson, but that would be a close as the Reddies would get, as the Crimson Storm salted it away late to secure the win.

Henderson's bench out-scored SNU 33-14 and the Reddies shot the ball well at the free throw line, going 17-for-19 on the day, but the Crimson Storm shot 58.6 percent from the floor in the second half to hold off a scrappy HSU team.

The Reddies return to action on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. when they face Northwestern Oklahoma State in the Duke Wells Center.