Box Score CENTRAL, SC - The Belhaven men's basketball team held off Southern Wesleyan University and claimed a crucial 90-78 Southern States Athletic Conference victory Friday night on the road. The win snapped a four game losing streak and ran the Blazers record against conference foes to 4-1. Belhaven now resides in second place in the SSAC West Division.

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"This by far was the best game of basketball we have played all year," said Belhaven Head Coach John Aiken. "We played great offensively and our defensive effort was outstanding as well. Everybody who played tonight contributed to the victory. I told the team after the new year that we get a fresh start and a chance to do something special the rest of this season and the guys really bought in tonight."

Belhaven (5-7, 4-1 SSAC) blistered the nets making a season high 57.7 percent (30-52) of their shots from the field. The Blazers trailed by four points at 17-13 seven minutes into the game and then faced a 32-30 deficit with just over four minutes to play until the break. Curt Hall knotted the game at 32-32 with a field goal and sparked a 15-5 Belhaven run to close the first half. Thanks to the hot shooting, the Blazers carried a 45-37 lead into the locker room.

Belhaven expanded the lead to 16 points with just over 12 minutes left in the contest after Dycus Juste fired in a two point bucket to make it a 65-49 advantage for the Blazers. However, Southern Wesleyan (8-6, 3-2 SSAC) would not go quietly on their home floor. The Warriors began to find the bottom of the net consistently and pulled to within four at 80-76 on a bucket from Terrance Hutchins with 2:39 to play.

However, the final 2:39 would belong to the Blazers on the strength of a 10-2 run down the stretch to close the game. Chris Cofield and Jonathan Ratliff both came up with clutch free throws in the final moments to keep Southern Wesleyan at bay.

Four free throws by Ratliff during that span capped a 21 point night that led all scorers in the contest. The senior forward was 7 for 11 from the field and converted 7 of 9 attempts at the charity stripe. He also shared the team lead in rebounds with Cofield as each player pulled down six boards. Cofield joined Ratliff in double figures with 11 points and nine assists while Deon Bedford and Datodrick Pinkston added 16 and 12 points respectively.

As a team, the Blazers hit 41.7 percent of their triples (5-12) and cashed in 75.8 percent of their free throws (25-33). Belhaven scored over half of the points in the paint (46) and converted 17 Warrior turnovers into 20 points on the offensive end of the floor.

Southern Wesleyan also had four players reach double figures in points scored, led by Cameron Solomon with 20. Dwayne Bryant and Hutchins both dropped in 12 followed by Kenny Holmes with 10. Bryant posted a double double thanks to a game high 12 rebounds. The Warriors made 47 percent of their shots from the field (31-66) but struggled from behind the arc making just 4 of 19 from downtown (21.1%). Southern Wesleyan finished the night 12 of 16 from the free throw line and held a 39-26 rebounding edge over the Blazers.

Belhaven will hit the court again on Saturday when the team travels to Southern Polytechnic State University for another SSAC battle at 4:00 PM.

"We now have a huge game at Southern Poly with and a chance to go to 5-1 in the SSAC," added Aiken. "I'm excited to get back on the floor tomorrow."