FORT WORTH – Wayland Baptist had no answer for Akili Vining, whose 45 points powered Texas Wesleyan to a 95-90 Sooner Athletic Conference victory over the Pioneers on Thursday night at Sid Richardson Center.
Wayland (10-6, 5-5 SAC), ranked the equivalent of 40
th in the NAIA after falling out of the Top 25 Wednesday, rallied from an early 10-point deficit, taking a 66-65 lead with under 12 minutes left in the game. The lead changed hands a total of seven times over the next five minutes until the Pioneers managed to build a six-point spread, 82-76, with 5:48 to play.
The lead lasted until the Rams went up 90-88 with 1:20 showing. Wayland's
RJ Mason tied it with just under a minute to play, but those would be the Pioneers' final points of the game.
Vining lofted in a layup for what turned out to be the winning points with 30 seconds left. The Rams blocked Wayland's next shot, leading to a pair of Vining free throws and a four-point lead with 10 seconds to go.
The Pioneers then lost the ball out of bounds near midcourt, and after a foul the Rams put in one more free throw. Wayland missed a final 3-pointer before the buzzer.
Vining, a 6-foot-2 senior guard from Fort Worth, got his 45 points on 16-of-23 shooting from the field, including 5-of-9 3-pointers, and 8-of-8 free throws. He shattered his previous-best of 29 points as he also recorded nine rebounds, seven assists, two steals and two fouls in 39 minutes.
Micale Mee was the only other Ram in double-figures with 16 points. TXWES hit 12-of-27 3-pointers (44 percent) compared to 7-of-15 (47 percent) for Wayland.
Four Pioneers had at least 16 points: Mason, who had four 3s, with 22,
Tedrick Wolfe with 20,
Manny Crump with 18 and
Reece Spencer with 16. It was the first action of the season for Crump, a 6-foot-8 junior transfer from Sam Houston St. Both Crump and
D'Michael Bellfield, who had seven points in the wake of two big performances last week, fouled out.
The Pioneers suffered 19 turnovers, one off its season-worse but just two more than the Rams.
Wayland looks to avoid its first three-game losing skid of the season at 3:45 p.m. Saturday in Chickasha, Okla., against second-place Science & Arts of Oklahoma (11-5, 8-2), ranked the equivalent of 32
nd in the NAIA. The Drovers rolled over Oklahoma-Panhandle State on Thursday, 106-88.
