CEDAR CITY, Utah, Jan. 23 - Ceola Clark and David Nurse combined to hit 10-of-16 3-pointers and score 37 points Saturday night as Western Illinois' men's basketball team claimed its first-ever win in Cedar City, 67-54.

            Clark hit 6-of-8 3-pointers to finish with a game-high 23 points while Nurse knocked down 4-of-8 threes en route to a 14 point night as the Leathernecks tied their season-high, hitting 10 from long range. Clark also had a game-high five assists.

            "We knew Clark and Nurse could shoot, defending them was what we worked on in practice," SUU Coach Roger Reid said. "We worked in practice on not letting them get the ball, so a real disappointment to me is that they had that kind of success."

            Early on it looked like it might be SUU's night as Matt Massey hit a couple of layups and converted a traditional 3-point play to give SUU a 5-0 lead, but Nurse gave a hint of what was to come when he drained a 3-pointer from the right wing for the Leathernecks' first basket.

            Western took its first lead at the 11:56 mark when Quenton Kirby hit a jumper, then grabbed the lead for good four minutes later when another Kirby basket gave the Leathernecks a 17-15 lead.

            WIU took a 27-21 lead into halftime and Clark hit a 3-pointer to open the scoring in the second half and give his team a nine-point cushion. A James Granstra dunk gave WIU a 32-21 lead, and although SUU got back within six on several occasions and didn't trail by more than 11 until fouling in the final minute in an attempt to get back in the game, the Thunderbirds were never able to get back over the hump.

            "They were a really good defensive team, particularly in the first half," Reid pointed out. "They held us to 39 percent (20-of-51) shooting and they did a good job bottling up Davis Baker. We played well on the defensive end in the first half but in the second we weren't able to maintain that effort."

            Clark did most of his damage after halftime, hitting five of his 3-pointers and scoring 16 of his points in the second half, when the Leathernecks hit 14-of-25 shots after converting just 10-of-27 in the first period.

            SUU had a better effort in the second half as well, hitting 14-of-28 shots after halftime but just 6-of-23 in the first period.

            Baker led Southern Utah with 14 points  and seven rebounds while Jake Nielson came off the bench to score 13  points and dish out a team-high three assists. Matt Massey added 11 points and seven rebounds for SUU.

            Southern Utah dipped to 5-15 and 1-8 in Summit League play with the loss while Western Illinois improved to 8-11 and 2-7 in league games.

            Next up for SUU is a game against UMKC next Saturday night in the Centrum.

-- SUU --