OKLAHOMA CITY – The No. 2 Mid-America Christian men's basketball team faced a late scare from Wayland Baptist, but the Evangels were able to hold off the Pioneers comeback to come away with an 83-81 victory on Saturday at the Gaulke Activity Center.

Wayland Baptist (14-9, 7-7 Sooner Athletic Conference) fought back from 13 down at halftime to make it a one-point game with six seconds left, but Tony Dorsey made a heads up play by throwing a deep pass off the inbound trap, that was deflected out-of-bounds by Wayland Baptist with a second left, all but dashing the Pioneers comeback chances.

Mid-America Christian (23-1, 13-1 SAC) was led by senior guard D'von Moore off the bench with 19 points on 5-of-8 shooting, going 4-for-6 from beyond the arc and 5-for-5 from the free throw line along with three rebounds, two assists and two steals.

The Evangels started out strong through the first 6:05. After Calon Woodson drained a three on MACU's first possession, Golden splashed a pair of treys along with Dorsey and Terrance Jones to take an 18-8 lead with 13:55 remaining.

The Wayland Baptist defense was able to clamp down on the Evangels over the next 4:15 as a 4-0 run cut the MACU lead to six. However, the Evangels were able to quickly push the advantage back out to 10 on a pair of Golden buckets, bringing the score to 22-12 with 9:55 left.

The Pioneers once again were able to chip the Mid-America Christian lead down to two on a pair of Jack Nobles free throws with 3:25, making it a 32-30 game. The Evangels strung together a fantastic response to the comeback, as Woodson and Moore splashed threes on consecutive possessions to push the advantage back to eight at 38-30 with 2:26 remaining.

After a pair of Tre Fillmore free throws trimmed the lead to six, the Evangels finished the half with seven unanswered as a pair of Damarius Brooks layups and a Moore triple gave MACU a 45-32 edge at the break.

Mid-America Christian shot 50s across the board in the opening half, knocking down 16-of-32 from the field, 9-for-18 from beyond the arc and 4-for-8 from the foul line while limiting the Pioneers to just 9-for-28 (32.1 percent) shooting and a staggering 1-for-11 (9.1 percent) from three. However, WBU was able to hang around by knocking down 13-for-14 (92.9 percent) from the charity stripe.

A Dominick Ford free throw 13 seconds into the second half gave the Evangels their largest lead of the game, but Wayland Baptist refused to let MACU pull away.

The Pioneers scored the next six on a C.J. Obinwa three and a J.J. Culver three-point play to shrink the MACU advantage to 46-38 with 18:57 on the clock.

MACU briefly built the lead back up to double-digits with 16:15 to go as Jones was able to pick off an inbound pass from the baseline and go coast-to-coast for the fastbreak layup, bringing the score to 51-40.

The Evangels led by at least three scores for the next nine minutes, but with 7:17 remaining, Wayland Baptist started a 9-2 run that was finished off by a pair of Culver free throws to make it a one-point game at 69-68 with 5:46 left.

Following a timeout called by MACU head coach Josh Gamblin, Moore knocked down one of the biggest shots of the game. With the shot clock winding down, Ford found Moore in the right corner and he drained the fade away three with just a couple seconds left on the shot clock.

The clutch shot ignited an eight unanswered run for the Evangels as Jones scored a layup on the ensuing possession and after Jones blocked Culver's shot, Woodson sank his third triple of the game with 3:41 to go, extending MACU's edge to 77-68.

A pair of Nobles free throws was able to put a stop to the run, but MACU answered right back on the following possession as Moore drove hard down the lane and kicked it out to a wide open Jones for three from the left corner, stretching the Evangels lead to 80-70 with 3:06 to go.

Wayland Baptist's defense once again was able to lock down on MACU, holding the Evangels scoreless over the next 2:30 while going on a 7-0 to bring the game back to within a single score at 80-77.

With just 26 seconds left, Ford took it into the paint and drew a foul on the Pioneers, sinking a pair of clutch free throws to make it a two-possession game at 82-77.

On the Pioneers possession, Culver once again was able to knock down a pair of foul shots to bring it back to a three-point game and had a chance to hit the game-tying bucket after the Pioneers stole the in-bound pass. However, Culver's look from the right side rattled out with 11 seconds left before WBU's Bonny Udoh got the rebound and the putback with just six seconds remaining.

Out of a Wayland timeout, Dorsey caught the inbound pass in the right corner and instinctively threw a deep pass to Golden down the right side. While the pass was slightly too long for the senior guard/forward, the ball went off a Pioneers defender with just 1.1 seconds on the clock.

Jones was fouled before the inbound pass was completed and made one of two free throws, intentionally missing the second to run out the clock.

Mid-America Christian finished the game by shooting 26-for-52 (50 percent) from the field while knocking down 13-for-31 (44.8 percent) from three. While the Pioneers also shot 50 percent from the floor in the second half, they finished 22-for-54 (40.7 percent) shooting while only mustering 4-for-21 (19 percent) from three. The one area that kept Wayland Baptist in the game was converting from the free throw line, knocking down 33-of-36 (91.7 percent) for the contest.

Fighting foul trouble for most of the game, Golden joined Moore in double-figures with 18 points on 6-for-10 from the floor, 3-of-6 from three and 3-for-4 from the foul line to go along with six rebounds in just 17 minutes of action.

Jones was the only other Evangel to crack double-digits off the MACU bench, scoring 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting and 2-for-2 from behind the arc.

With the win, the Evangels extended their lead to a full game over No. 9 John Brown at the top of the Sooner Athletic Conference standings with just six games left in the regular season.

Mid-America Christian will be back on the road next week for one of its toughest tests of the season as the Evangels will head to Waxahachie, Texas to take on No. 15 Southwestern Assemblies of God at 7:45 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 13.