Box Score ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Missouri S&T's promising start Sunday afternoon was erased by its inability to slow down Missouri-St. Louis' attack when it started to cool off from the field, allowing the Tritons to run away in the second half to a 103-79 victory in the opening round of the Deaconess Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament.

The loss ends the Miner season at 12-15 while the Tritons move on to play second-seeded Wisconsin-Parkside in the tournament's quarterfinal round Friday in Evansville, Ind.

The Miners started out well, taking a 22-19 lead on a three-point play by Nusrath Khan (Morton Grove, Ill./Maine East) at the 12:09 mark of the opening half.  S&T extended that lead to five on a put-back by Danylo Zuikov (Kiev, Ukraine/LaLumiere School) just over a minute later, prompting a timeout from UMSL head coach Bob Sundvold.

Following the timeout, Darian Cartharn scored on a lay-in to spark a 14-0 Triton run that gave them a 33-24 lead by the 7:22 mark of the half, a run that was halted on Curtis Okafor (Kansas City, Mo./Bishop Miege)'s put-back.

A pair of free throws by Zachary Ellis (St. Louis, Mo./Whitfield School) with 2:15 to go in the half cut the UMSL lead to 44-39, but a lay-up and a three-pointer on back-to-back possessions by Femi John – with a blocked shot in between – gave the Tritons their largest advantage of the first half at 10.  John scored 19 of his game-high 30 points in the first 20 minutes as UMSL led 50-43 at the break.

The Miners were held scoreless for the first 3:36 of the second half, allowing the Tritons to extend their lead to 14.  Bryce Foster (Florissant, Mo./Hazelwood Central)'s three-pointer ended the drought, then Foster hit two more treys, the latter at the 13:33 mark to get the Miners to within six at 60-54.

That would end up being as close as the Miners would get, as points continued to be hard to come by for S&T.  The Tritons were able to get their lead back into double figures on a floater by Aareon Smith with 10:23 to play, then after Khan made two free throws at the 9:37 mark to cut the UMSL lead to 69-60, the Tritons rattled off 11 straight points to take the lead out to 20 and cruised for the remainder of the afternoon.

S&T shot only 39.1 percent from the floor for the contest while the Tritons finished the day at 59.3 percent.  The Miners were unable to slow down UMSL's duo of John and Tylor Wimbish, who combined to go 18-of-28 from the floor.  Wimbish added 27 points to go with the 30 John posted.

Foster, who along with Khan and Mudiaga Eruteya (Chicago, Ill./Notre Dame) played in their final games at Missouri S&T, led the Miners with 22 points and ended his illustrious career in the program with 1,683 points.  He also became just the second player in school history to score 600 career field goals during the course of Sunday's contest.

Khan added 20 for the Miners while Michael Nesbitt (Evansville, Ind./LaLumiere School) and Danylo Zuikov (Kiev, Ukraine/LaLumiere School) finished with 10 points each.

UMSL also got 16 points from Smith and 13 from Cartharn.