Men's Basketball | 1/31/2009 11:36:14 PM
Box Score [Box score]
Saint Martin's raced out to an 11-2 lead and never trailed the entire night in route to defeating Western Oregon 89-77 on Saturday night in men's basketball action in Lacey, Wash.
The loss was the sixth straight for the Wolves, who dropped to 1-6 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference and to 7-11 on the season. Saint Martin's improved to 3-4 in the GNAC and to 15-6 overall.
Blake Poole had 22 rebounds and 19 points to pace the Saints' efforts. Poole's totals helped push the hosts to a 56-30 edge on the boards. Teammate Bill Richardson also had a double-double with 21 points and 13 rebounds and Jake Linton added 19 points for SMU.
Mike McLaughlin led the Wolves with 20 points. Travis Kuhns added 16 points and a team-best eight rebounds, and three other WOU players notched double figure scoring numbers: Blair Wheadon (13), Sam Kelly (10) and Matt Schmidt (10).
After SMU's rush out of the gate, Western Oregon would come back later in the first half to within three points on a dunk by Kuhns (25-22) with 9:07 before intermission. But that's as close as they would get, and the Saints would go on to post a double digit lead for almost the entire second half.
The Wolves now return home to host Montana State Billings on Thursday (Feb. 5) at 7 p.m.
