CONWAY, Ark. _ The University of Central Arkansas Bears figured out a way to pull out another Atlantic Sun Conference victory on Saturday, beating the Bellarmine Knights 59-57 at the Farris Center.

UCA improved to 2-1 in league play by surviving a chaotic final minute for the second time in the past two weeks. UCA iost most of a 23-point lead at North Alabama in their ASUN opener on Jan. 6 before securing an 84-81 victory on the road. Saturday's finish was just as frantic, despite not losing a big lead this time.

"We learned a couple of lessons from that game at North Alabama and we grew a little bit," said UCA head coach Anthony Boone. "We still have a ways to go and have other things to learn and other things to get better at. But we did show some growth and a little bit of maturity from that game to this one. 

"So really excited, really proud of the guys with their effort and their focus today, and being able to gut out this win." 

The Bears led 58-54 with 57.2 second left before Bellarmine made a pair of free throws. From their it got crazy as both teams had multiple fouls to give before the bonus. Bellarmine committed three straight fouls before finally sending UCA freshman Tucker Anderson to the free-throw line with 17.7 seconds left. He made one of two for a 59-56 lead.

The Knights missed a shot and UCA's Johannes Kirsipuu was fouled with 7.0 remaining. He missed the front end of the one-and-one, allowing Bellarmine a final attempt. UCA fouled Alex Pfriem and he made the first free throw to make it 59-57, then then missed the second intentionally before UCA secured the rebound and the win. 

The Bears held the injury plagued Knights to just 41.9-percent shooting and 7 of 23 from three-point range, and also outrebounded them 39-33. That effort on the defensive end allowed the Bears to overcome a 7-of-14 performance at the free-throw line and 25-percent shooting (6 of 24) from beyond the arc.

"That certainly was the goal. We wanted to make sure we wore them down," said Boone. "One of the things that (Bellarmine) Coach (Scott) Davenport said before the game was they are low on numbers right now. And I told him I understand because we've been dealing with that all season. So we wanted to wear them down as much as possible, get into their legs as much as possible.

"And I think we had one more player than they did, maybe a couple more, so we wanted to pressure them as much as possible, get up and press. Even though we weren't necessarily trying to turn them over with it, but just wear them down as much as possible, and keep the pressure on as much as we could."

Sophomore Carl Daughtery, Jr., led the Bears with 17 points and 5 rebounds, while Anderson added 13 points and was 3 of 6 from three-point range. Graduate Daniel Sofield and junior Elias Cato added 10 points each, with Cato pulling down a team-high eight rebounds. Sophomore Johannes Kirsipuu handed out 5 of UCA's 11 assists and also had 6 points and 5 rebounds.

Bellarmine's Garrett Tipton had three three-pointers and led the Knights (4-15, 0-4) with 18 points.

The Bears (6-13, 2-1) return to the road for a pair of conference games next week, playing at Lipscomb on Thursday and at Austin Peay on Saturday.