FORT WORTH – Last season, Texas Wesleyan's Branden Jenkins hit a three as time expired to beat rival Southwest Assemblies of God at the Sid Richardson Center - the sixth-straight regular season victory over the Lions. Thursday night, SAGU (11-4, 4-3 SAC) clapped back with Cameron Hill's pull-up three at the buzzer of overtime in a 94-91 loss for the Rams (7-8, 2-5 SAC).
 
Hill scored a season-high 29 points (previous high was 21) hitting five threes – the most he's hit all season. The Houston native, Hill was the spark that the Lions needed after leading scorer Joshua Kashila and point guard Mitchell McMullen got in early foul trouble. Three different times the Rams tied the game in OT but could never pull ahead.
 
Texas Wesleyan led 85-80 with 3:15 to go in regulation, but missed its last three shots with two turnovers down the stretch. It was a heartbreaker for the Rams who played one of their more complete games of the season – and just the second home loss for the program in January since 2016.
 
The Rams won points in the paint (36-30), second-chance points (9-6), hit more threes (11-10) grabbed more rebounds (48-42) and hit on 53 percent of their field goals in the second half (16-of-30). But the Rams left 14 points at the line (14-of-28), and turned the ball over 20 times, leading to 26 points for SAGU.
 
Sam Lorenzen was the hot hand, scoring a season high 18 points on 6-of-12 shooting, 5-of-10 from deep with three assists, two blocks and a board in 39 minutes. Diing Lwal Diing also turned in 18 points with nine rebounds and two assists in 31 minutes on the floor. Both numbers were season highs on a night when many players needed to step up to balance out Hill's performance.
 
Peyton Sallee – the freshman – scored 16 points on 6-of-8 shooting – most notably an incredible fly-in for an offensive rebound and-1 tip-in. Sallee had more three-pointers made (four), rebounds (four), steals (two) and blocks (one) than in any other game in the 2018-2019 season in which he has carved out a vital role and extensive minutes for himself.
 
Rob Thomas, Dare Brazeal and Juwan Jones all had 10 points the three combining for 19 rebounds. Andre Edwards grabbed eight points and eight rebounds in 20 minutes off the bench.
 
NO MORE UNBEATENS, UPSETS ABOUND
Southwestern Christian rolled past No. 12 Oklahoma City 105-70 Tuesday night and No. 21 John Brown defeated No. 4 Langston 71-68 Saturday. John Brown now sits atop the SAC with a 6-1 record. Last season, Texas Wesleyan started conference 1-3 before winning seven in a row and making the NAIA National Tournament.
 
WHAT'S NEXT
The loss drops the Rams to 2-5 in conference play, but the Rams have another golden opportunity to capitalize on Thursday night at 8 p.m. when Central Christian comes to Fort Worth. The Tigers are 2-4, 8-5 overall and can be leap-frogged if TXWES can put it all together.