MAGNOLIA, Ark. - Henderson St. held a 31-28 lead at the break, but a raucous home crowd gave Southern Arkansas the boost it needed Thursday evening as the Muleriders won the second game of the two-game regular season slate between the two schools, 79-61.

The Muleriders made six threes in the second half compared to four in the first while HSU hit on two of their 15 attempts in addition to winning the points-off-turnovers battle, 35-8, despite Henderson outscoring SAU in the paint, 46-28. Malik Riddle had a team-high 14 points and nine rebounds, followed by Alvin Miles (12) and Tomislav Miholjcic (10) to round out the double-digit scorers for the visiting team. 

The Reddies went to big man Miholjcic early and often as he scored all four of HSU's points before the first media horn sounded. Henderson did find itself behind, 8-4, however, before Riddle rattled off six of the Reddies' next eight points prior to Miholjcic giving the visitors its first lead of the game at the 12:36 mark, 14-12. From there, the lead changed hands four times over the next minute and a half before HSU saw its first big run of the game.

A Franck Kamgain and-1 opened up a 10-0 run that saw the the Reddie defense hold the Mulerider offense scoreless for over five minutes to give Henderson its biggest of the lead up to that point, 26-18. From there, the SAU home crowd made its voice heard as Southern Arkansas responded in turn with a 10-0 spurt of its own to retake a 28-26 advantage just prior to the under-four media.

A three-pointer from Zyon Patterson followed by a Kamgain lay-up delivered the final points of the first half as five straight from HSU saw the Reddies take the halftime edge, 31-28. The back-and-forth contest showed Henderson make one more field-goal than the Muleriders as Riddle led the way with eight points and three rebounds.

Play got chippy between the two sides in the early going of the second as Southern Arkansas' crowd began to make an impact. The first four minutes of the second half saw SAU log back-to-back three-pointers which put them ahead 43-36 ahead of a Henderson timeout.

Over the next six minutes, the Muleriders equaled their three-point total from the first 20 minutes as they opened a 57-42 lead with a little over 10 minutes remaining in regulation. Henderson was able to cut the deficit down to seven on multiple occasions, yet the shots kept falling for SAU as they evened the season series with HSU.

Henderson St. (7-8, 4-5) returns home to face Arkansas-Monticello Saturday, Jan. 21 at 3 p.m. The Reddies will look for the regular season-sweep of the Boll Weevils after defeating them in Monticello earlier this season, 64-61.