Alva Review-Courier -

BETHANY, Okla. — Southern Nazarene thought it might be able to sneak under the radar before the season started. After Saturday's 91-74 win over the GAC preseason favorite, and No. 23, Arkansas-Monticello, SNU will surely catch some attention the rest of the way.

The Crimson Storm (3-0, 2-0 GAC) have not started a season 3-0 since 2014-15 and have knocked off a ranked Weevils (3-1, 2-1 GAC) team for the second straight time. Micah Speight led the way for SNU with 21 points, nine assists and four rebounds. He was 6-for-11 from the floor with three 3-pointers. He was also 6-for-6 at the line. Noah Starkey matched his career-high with 19 points as he was 8-for-10 from the field. Jhonathan Dunn added 18 points and four rebounds as he was 6-for-12 from the floor and 4-for-6 from beyond the arc. Zach Johnson pitched in with 10 points, six rebounds and four assists off of the bench.

The Storm shot a season-high 62.0 percent from the field and were 9-for-17 from 3-point range. SNU missed just one free throw the entire night as it went 20-for-21. Southern Nazarene out rebounded UAM 29-27. The Storm bench also added 21 points while the Weevils' reserves had just six. Despite turning it over 22 times, SNU gave up just 12 points off those miscues and in-turn scored 23 points off 14 UAM turnovers.

SNU opened the game on a 20-8 run, but Monticello never let the Storm get too far away. UAM cut it to 28-23 with 5:22 left in the half and were down 33-27 before the Storm went on a 9-2 run to take their biggest lead of the half at 42-29. Monticello hit a couple of free throws to reduce it to 42-31 at the half.

The Weevils got within five twice early in the second and SNU led 55-50 with 13:19 left to play. The Storm answered though with a 16-4 run capped by a Speight three to lead 71-54 with 9:09 to play. Southern Nazarene took a 75-57 lead on a Dunn jumper with 7:21 to play. SNU took its biggest lead of the game at 87-66 on a traditional 3-point play by Speight with 4:41 and didn't look back from there.