Peru State earned a share of the Heart of America conference regular season championship with a 91-67 win over Evangel on Saturday in Peru, Nebraska.
The 18th ranked Bobcats led by as much as 31 early in the second half owning a 50-19 lead. The Crusaders rallied and, less than nine minutes later, cut the Peru State lead to 11 trailing 62-51 with 10:33 remaining.
Peru State responded with a 12-3 run to go back ahead by 20 four minutes later.
"We cut it to 11 but ran out of gas at that point," said head coach Steve Jenkins. "We had a pretty good second half but it wasn't a good first half and that put us too far behind. I liked the way we battled but their size gave us problems. We rushed too many shots and played like we were in fast-forward during the first half."
The Bobcats built a 20 point lead early going ahead 29-9 with 8:36 left in the first half. The Crusaders trailed 45-19 at halftime.
Nick Yocum led the Crusaders with 24 points. Corday Sims had 32 points and 13 rebounds for Peru State while Kris Frazier added 23 points and 12 boards for the Bobcats.
During the game, Evangel guard Richard Chapman scored the 1,000th point of college career becoming the 33rd player in program history to reach the milestone. Sims, meanwhile, set Peru State's single season scoring record the game recording 783 points so far this year.
Evangel ends the year with a 7-23 record and a 6-14 mark in the Heart of America conference. Their 23 losses match the most by an Evangel team since 1996 and their 7 wins are the fewest in head coach Steve Jenkins' 34 year tenure. They will miss their first postseason since 1989.
Peru State improved to 21-9 and 17-5 in the conference. The Bobcats tied William Penn and MidAmerica Nazarene for the Heart of America regular season championship.
