CONWAY, Ark. _ The University of Central Arkansas Bears completely dominated the second half Saturday afternoon and took a 93-76 victory over the Lamar Cardinals in Southland Conference action at the Farris Center.

    UCA (2-11, 1-2) scored a season-high 62 points in the second half, shooting 57.6 percent from the field and making 22 of 24 (91.7 percent) from the free-throw line. That allowed the Bears to roll to their first league victory since a 74-72 win over Southeastern Louisiana on Feb. 28, 2015.  

    "I thought tonight they were dialed in on what we wanted to do,' said UCA head coach Russ Pennell. "Tonight there was a little bit more of a flow to the game and I was really proud of the guys. I thought everybody tonight played their roles. The role was exactly what we had designed and asked them to do. They embraced it and did a really good job.'

    Junior guard Derreck Brooks filled up his boxscore with 24 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocked shots, leading five players in double figures for the Bears. Sophomore guard Mathieu Kamba, in his second straight start, had 18 points (shooting 7 of 11) and 5 rebounds, while sophomore guard Jordan Howard made 3 three-pointers and added 15 points. Senior forward Justin Foreman scored 12 and senior guard Jeff Lowery added 11. Howard was coming off a 36-point performance against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Tuesday.

    "Derreck had a really fine day,' Pennell said. "I think the Abilene (Christian) game really stuck with him. I think he felt like he really let the team down. He just played a really poor game, and he would admit that. He was much better at (Texas A&M) Corpus Christi the other night, and you saw him even much better today. If he's playing like that, he just gives us that other threat and people can't lock in on Jordan (Howard).

    "I thought Jordan played a really good game, and didn't have to score 36. Derreck had a really fine performance and that's what we've come to expect from him.'

    UCA shot just 33.3 percent from the field in the first half and needed a three-pointer from Howard in the final seconds to go into the locker room tied at 31-31. The Bears were just 3 of 9 at the free-throw line in the first half. 

    "I thought the first half, we left some points out there,' said Pennell. "I thought we should have had a bigger lead. And I also told the guys, Lamar could say the same thing because they shot 29 percent the first half. I told them at halftime, it felt like a conference game at some places I've been before. Against conference foes, it's going to be back and forth and back and forth.

    "A lot of times that goes down to the wire. Other times, you'll  have that moment where you can break it. I told them, we wanted to be the aggressor, and if they kept shooting the way they were, we were going to break this thing open.' 

    The Bears did that, opening the second half by scoring the first six points, and used a 19-7 run over the first five minutes to jump ahead 50-38. A three-pointer by Howard with 6:35 remaining pushed the UCA lead to 19 points at 73-54. Brooks completed a three-point play to make it a 20-point margin. The Cardinals (9-6, 1-2) got within 14 points once more with 1:04 to play but the Bears closed it out with free throws from Brooks and Jeff Lowery and an inside basket by Justin Foreman.

    While UCA was shooting well over 60 percent from the field for much of the second half, Lamar finished at 30.2 percent in the final 20 minutes and just 3 of 13 (23.1 percent) from three-point range.

    "The best thing about the win was, I thought from tip to horn, we played with an urgency for 40 minutes,' said Pennell. "That doesn't mean we played mistake-free, but we played with more of an urgency, and that's the way you have to play in order to win games. We're finally starting to understand that that's how you win. You're not going to hold people as low as what Lamar shot tonight every night, but if you can hold people in the mid to low 30s on a consistent basis, you're going to be in every ballgame.'

    The Cardinals, who have lost two consecutive SLC games, got 16 points from Nick Garth and 14 from Quan Jones, and 12 points and 13 rebounds from Dontavious Sears. 

    The Bears head to Nacogdoches, Texas, on Tuesday night to take on SLC favorite Stephen F. Austin. The Bears and Lumberjacks tip off from Johnson Coliseum is 7 p.m.