NACOGDOCHES, Texas _ One huge first-half run by Stephen F. Austin was the undoing of the University of Central Arkansas Bears on Wednesday night in a 97-62 loss in Southland Conference action at Johnson Coliseum.

The third-place Lumberjacks (23-5, 12-3) evened the season series with the victory after UCA won the first meeting 100-92 in Conway. UCA (13-15, 7-8). In fact, the past three meetings had been decided by an average of 5.0 points, one of those in overtime. But the long scoring drought in the first half by the Bears was the difference Wednesday as UCA was held to its lowest scoring output of the season.

The Bears got off to the good start they needed on the road, getting two quick three-pointers by senior Mathieu Kamba and freshman Matthew Mondesir on their first two possessions of the game, forcing a quick SFA time out. Senior Jordan Howard added another for a 9-2 UCA lead just two minutes into the game. 

The lead reached 14-7 before the Lumberjacks awoke. When they did, they put together an 18-0 run, holding UCA scoreless for six minutes and ran out to a 25-14 lead at the 9:00 mark. Howard broke the drought with a free throw at the 5:30 mark but the Lumberjacks continued their run and ended the half with a 49-30 lead.

SFA connected on six three-pointers in the first half and shot 54.1 percent overall. UCA, on the other hand, hit just 30 percent overall and had five three-pointers, but also had nine turnovers, allowing the Lumberjacks to score 14 points off the miscues.

"We were just really poor tonight,' said UCA head coach Russ Pennell. "The only thing that I could right now be halfway positive about is before I could get to the locker room, they were already talking it out, and in a good way. There was no hollering and screaming at each other. They are talking about reflecting and how we have guys that have to reach deeper. 

"When it gets difficult, you have to fight through all that stuff. I haven't even addressed them yet. They were conducting it and I told my staff to leave them alone. Let them talk through it. We know we're not the team we saw tonight. It was embarrassing and I'm very disappointed with the outcome.'

The Lumberjacks, still in the running for a possible top seed at the SLC Tournament, made 11 three-pointers and shot 45,8  percent from the arc. UCA had connected 16 times in the first meeting, with Howard and junior Thatch Unruh combining to go 13 of 17 and scoring 43 and 28 points, respectively. On Wednesday, UCA finished with just six threes and shot poorly from the perimeter for the third consecutive game, hitting at a 25-percent clip.

"You usually have one of these (games) a year,' said Pennell, "you honestly do. I'm a little surprised that it hadn't happened until now. These things just happen. You know, we've done it to a few teams, maybe not to this extent. I thought the biggest thing was, I saw a little bit of give up tonight, and that bothered me, it bothered me a lot.

"You know, we just have to do some soul searching right now and figure out if we want to keep playing, We're going to have to get better at a couple of things. Our defensive transition... we talked about that all week. When you don't run back, there's something wrong with that, especially when you know that's the strength of a team. I honestly thought in the  first half, when we got them into the half court, we played pretty good defense.'
Pennell went to his bench almost exclusively for the final eight minutes of the game. Redshirt freshman Jared Chatham tied his career high with eight points as UCA finished wiht 23 points off the bench.

"Down the stretch, there was no need to play Mathieu and Jordan heavy minutes with the game out of hand. And we have another one on Saturday. So we played some guys who haven't been in there in awhile, and that was good for them to get an opportunity. And some of them played quite well.

"I thought Jared (Chatham) looked pretty good. He's going to be a good player. He just needs some more experience.'

UCA continues its road trip on Saturday afternoon at Abilene Christian. Game time is 4 p.m. from Moody Coliseum. The Bears will play their final two regular-season games at home on Feb. 28 against Sam Houston State and March 3 against Northwestern State.