CEDAR CITY, Utah, Feb. 19 ? Southern Utah dug itself a hole in the first half and could never climb back out Thursday night as Oral Roberts completed a season-sweep of the Thunderbirds with a 64-46 Summit League win.
    The Golden Eagles used tenacious defense to force 11 SUU turnovers in the first half. ORU put together a 19-8 run over the final 10 minutes of the first half to take a 32-20 lead into halftime, then slowly built its lead in the second period.
    In the second half the Thunderbirds fell behind 50-32 with 10:18 to go but outscored ORU 8-2 over then next three minutes and appeared ready to make a run. After Tyler Quinney scored inside to pull the Thunderbirds within 52-40, Golden Eagle Coach Scott Sutton called a timeout, however, and his team responded with four straight points and the Thunderbirds didn't get back within 14 the rest of the way.
    “From the opening tip they came out and were the aggressors,” SUU Coach Roger Reid said. “They did the things they wanted to do, they dictated the tempo and they were more physical than we were.
They forced us into turnovers in the first half and they shot the ball better than we did. We did some good things out there but for the second time this year we really didn't have an answer for them inside.”
    Marcus Lewis ? ORU's 6-foot-8, 265-pound forward who scored 26 points the first time the teams met this year ? muscled his way to a team-high 16 points and pulled down nine rebounds, and while 6-9, 240 Kelvin Ford didn't have quite the same impact on the scoreboard he made a difference, pulling down five rebounds and wearing down Southern Utah's inside players.
    Davis Baker scored 17 points to lead Southern Utah, while John Clifford and Tyler Quinney each finished with 10. Clifford also pulled down nine rebounds for the Thunderbirds.
    Robert Jarvis and Andre Hardy each finished with 14 points for ORU, while Kyron Stokes had 10.
    SUU dipped to 7-8 in Summit League play (9-17 overall), while ORU moved to 12-3 (14-13).
    With the loss the Thunderbirds slipped into fifth place in the Summit League standings, as IUPUI ? a 57-55 winner at IPFW ? moved to 8-8, a half-game ahead of the Thunderbirds. With three games to play SUU holds a half-game lead on South Dakota State (7-9), a 1 ? game lead on Western Illinois and a two-game lead on IPFW and Centenary in the battle for the final five spots in the eight-team Summit League tournament which begins March 7 in Sioux Falls, S.D.
    North Dakota State, ORU and Oakland are the only teams to have clinched tournament berths.