NACOGDOCHES, Texas _ The Southland Conference preseason favorite played the part Wednesday night, particularly in the second half, as the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks pulled away for a 95-69 victory over the University of Central Arkansas at Johnson Coliseum.

SFA (6-2, 2-0) outscored the UCA (3-9, 2-2) 52-38 in the second half, shooting 57.6 percent from the field and connecting on five three-pointers in the final 20 minutes. UCA got another substantial effort from senior guard Rylan Bergersen, who scored 19 points and added 5 rebounds and 4 assists in the losing cause.

"They are good,' said UCA head coach Anthony Boone. "And I think we did a decent job in the first half, especially the last 10 minutes of the half we did pretty good. Then in the second half there was a stretch there, I guess about six minutes into the second half, where we just kind of let it get away from us.

"Too many turnovers, and not just turnovers, but ones where they get a steal and go down and score right off it. Too many of those, the pick six turnovers. It was just hard to recover from that.'

The Bears stayed within striking distance for much of the first half, and trailed by just eight points at 36-28 after a slam dunk by graduate transfer Samson George with 2:20 to play. But the Lumberjacks pushed the lead back to 12 points at the break by shooting 51.7 percent from the field in the half and scoring 13 points off eight UCA turnovers.

SFA could not shake UCA for the first five minutes of the second half as UCA kept the deficit at nine points on a pair of Bergersen free throws at the 14:03 mark. But from there, SFA went on a 9-2 scoring run and never led by less than 11 points the rest of the game. SFA had five players in double figures, led by the SLC's second-leading scorer Cameron Johnson who scored 21 points on 7-of-11 shooting. Gavin Kensmil added 17 points off the bench as the Lumberjacks got 46 points from their non-starters.

Samson was the only other Bear in double figures with 10 points and 6 rebounds. Sophomore Jaxson Baker went 3 for 3 from three-point range for his nine points, while sophomore Khaleem Bennett had 9 points and senior Jared Chatham had 8 points and 6 rebounds for the Bears, who were playing their second full game without injured senior point guard DeAndre Jones.

"We've put a lot on him (Bergersen), coming into a different role,' Boone said of his senior guard, who is averaging 17 points per game, good for fourth in the SLC. "He's had  a lot on his shoulders. He can handle it, but it's a little bit unfair to him. We've got to do something a little different just to help him out. We've got to take this next week or so to work on a couple of things to lighten his load.'

The Bears return home to the Farris Center on Saturday, taking on the Nicholls Colonels at 4 p.m., following the women's game at 1 p.m.