GUNNISON, Colo. – Black Hills State men's basketball downed Western Colorado 91-70 Monday night with the help of a big second half.

The Yellow Jackets (8-5, 8-5 RMAC) saw four in double-digit scoring while shooting 59.4 percent from the field as a team. They shot at a 64.7 percent clip and scored 54 points in the second half alone to earn their fifth-straight win.

Trey Whitley led the scoring attack with 18 points, going 3-of-7 from beyond the arc.

Sindou Cisse used 15 first-half points to total 17 on the night while shooting 8-of-10 from the field and grabbing four rebounds.

Joel Scott totaled 15 points and five rebounds while Tommy Donovan went 4-of-6 from the field and 3-of-3 from the charity stripe to tally 11 points.

BHSU took an early 4-0 lead on a pair of Cisse layups before back-and-forth play commenced. The Yellow Jackets would lead 16-15 midway through the first half before a Whitley 3-pointer at 10:20 pushed BHSU to its largest lead of the half at 20-15.

The Mountaineers came back to pull even with BHSU at 23-all and then again at 26-all before taking a 29-28 lead on a three with 3:54 to go. The Yellow Jackets answered to move back ahead and used layups from Cisse and Scott to head into halftime leading 37-33.

After WCU went back on top shortly out of the break, a Whitley three capped a 14-2 scoring run to go ahead 53-45 at 13:38. From there BHSU started to create some separation, taking its first 10-point lead on a Moussa three with under 10 minutes left to play.

After that, the Yellow Jackets used nine points from Donovan to outscore the Mountaineers 15-4 to lead 78-57 with 4:17 remaining. BHSU emptied the bench in the final minutes of play, seeing PJ Hayes score nine on a trio of threes and John Shanklin with two points to close out the game.

Up Next
The Yellow Jackets will head east to take on CSU Pueblo, Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 5 p.m.