Shawnee, Okla. -- The Mid-America Christian University Evangels overcame a sluggish start in the first half to notch an 83-75 victory on the road over the St. Gregory's University Cavaliers in a Sooner Athletic Conference matchup Monday night (Feb. 6) in Shawnee, Okla.

MACU trailed by as many as 14 in the first half, but fought back to within four at the half and opened the second half on a 16-6 run on the strength of a pair of threes by Camilo Valencia.

The score was even at 40-40 when Valencia nailed the second of his two treys during the spurt to give the Evangels (10-11, 5-11 SAC) the lead for good and Cameron Langster capped the run with a trey of his own for a six-point lead with 14:34 remaining.

It was largely back-and-forth over the next seven minutes, but the Evangels seized control from there as Charlie Shorter scored six points to spark an 11-4 run that gave MACU its largest lead of the night at 65-53 with 5:25 left.

The Cavaliers wouldn't go quietly and came within five on three free throws by Fayzon Richey, but the Evangels closed out the victory by going a solid 7-of-8 from the charity stripe over the final 47 seconds.

SGU (4-17, 1-14 SAC) got off to a quick start as two threes by John Clark and one trey from Richey made it 13-2 barely five minutes into the contest.

It was an eight-point lead when three straight baskets by Richey extended the advantage to 25-11.

The Evangels still trailed by 11 at the 4:43 mark, but closed the half out-scoring the Cavaliers 11-4 to come within 34-30 at the break.

Valencia led the Evangels with 19 points and hit 9-of-11 from the foul line. Shorter added 16, while George Haynes had 15 points and a team-high nine rebounds. Langster also reached double-digit scoring with 14 without missing a shot, hitting all three of his field-goal attempts and all six of his free-throws.

Richey was the lone Cavalier in double-figures, scoring a game-high 28 points to go along with a game-high 13 boards.

It was a tale of two halves shooting for both squads, as the Cavaliers shot 57.7 percent (15-of-26) from the field in the opening half, but cooled off to a 41.7 percent (15-of-36) clip in the second. Meanwhile, the Evangels mustered only a 34.4 percent (11-of-32) shooting clip in the first half before warming up to shoot 50 percent (14-of-28) in the final 20 minutes.

The Evangels were out-rebounded 43-34 overall but offset that by forcing 25 turnovers on the night.

MACU will now embark on a two-game swing in the Lone Star State, beginning with a matchup at Lubbock Christian on Thursday night (Feb. 9) at 7:30 p.m. in Lubbock, Texas.

The Evangels will be going for a season sweep over LCU, winning the first meeting 90-88 in the first meeting (Jan. 14) in OKC.