Seniors Mason Sawyer (West Jordan, Utah/West Jordan HS) and Robbie Nielson (Gresham, Ore./Barlow HS) led five Storm players in double figures with 17 points apiece on "Senior Night" as Dixie State rallied past Pacific West Conference leader Concordia-Irvine, 82-67, Saturday in the Burns Arena. The Storm finished the 2015-16 regular season with a nine-game winning streak to improve to 18-8/15-5 and tied for first in the PacWest standings.

Dixie State also locked up the No. 2-seed and a first-round in the upcoming PacWest Tournament, which will be held next weekend.

Concordia led by as many as 12 points in the first half, using a 19-7 run while hitting 11 of its first 19 shots in taking a 25-13 with just under nine minutes left in the stanza. As hot as the Eagles were to start the half, they took advantage of a cold start from the field and foul line from DSU as the Storm missed 11 of their first 15 shots and struggled from the line in the early going.

Despite the struggles, DSU hung tough and outscored CUI 21-13 over the final eight-plus minutes of the frame to trim the deficit down to 38-34 at the intermission.

Dixie State jumped on Concordia to start the second half as Trevor Hill (Sandy, Utah/Alta HS) and Nielson hit consecutive lay-ups to draw the Storm even at 38-38. The Eagles would answer with 3-pointers from JT Roach and Martin Thomas to reclaim the lead at 44-39 with 17:03 to go.

Then the Storm took over as DSU scored eight-straight points, which was started by a Nielson trey, as part of a 12-2 run that gave Dixie State its biggest lead of the game at 51-46 with 12:08 remaining.

Meanwhile, the Storm defense turned up its intensity as the unit started pressing CUI, and the pressure resulted in four forced Eagle turnovers and four missed shots during the run. Concordia did keep it close, pulling to within three points and was down 60-56 with 7:26 left.

However Dixie State would not be denied as the Storm outscored Concordia 22-11 the rest of the way, including nine-straight points in one stretch. Hill provided a pair of exclamation points in the run with a steal and conventional 3-point play, followed by a monster baseline drive and dunk. Sophomore Brandon Simister (St. George, Utah/Desert Hills HS) then added a clutch 3-pointer and senior Mark Ogden Jr. (Spring Valley, Calif./Steele Canyon HS) capped the run and his final home game with an alley-oop dunk to bring the Burns Arena crowd to its feet.

"It was a good win overall but we're not done," Head Coach Jon Judkins said. "We talked about it at halftime that we did get some good shots, but we stopped being aggressive and getting to the basket. We thought our press would slow them down, but I didn't think we'd get as many turnovers out of it as we did.

"[Concordia] runs their offense so well and we wanted to get them out of what they were doing and disrupt their timing," Judkins added. "Then we started attacking the glass on offense and Trevor [Hill], Mason [Sawyer] and Robbie [Nielson] to the rim and scored for us."

Nielson just missed his career-high by just two points as he hit 6-of-10 from the floor with a pair of treys. Meanwhile Sawyer hit five of his 11 shots including two 3-pointers, and 5-of-6 from the line to go with four assists. Sawyer's two treys also pulled him into a tie for second place on DSU's career 3-point makes list with former Storm standout DeQuan Thompson (Las Vegas, NV/Lake Mead Christian Academy) (130).

Simister finished with 14 points on 4-of-6 shooting with three 3-pointers, while Hill scored 11 of his 13 points after halftime and dished out a game-high five assists, and junior Josh Fuller (Rexburg, Idaho/Madison HS) chipped in 10 points.

Ogden Jr. saw his six-game double-double streak end as he was held to just five points though he did manage to pull down a game-high 11 rebounds, which pulled him into a tie with former DSU standout Zach Robbins (Upland, CA/Upland) atop the school's single-season rebounding list with 266 caroms.

After their shooting struggles in the first half, the Storm hit on 64 percent of their shots (16-of-25) in the second half to finish at 54.0 percent (27-of-50) for the game. DSU also connected on 7-of-17 (.412) from beyond the arc, but missed 14 free throws en route to a 60.0 percent (21-of-35) clip from the charity stripe. Dixie State outrebounded CUI 34-26, including a 20-9 count in the second half, and forced eight of the Eagles' 17 turnovers after halftime.

Justin Davis led all scorers with 25 points on 10-of-16 shooting as CUI shot an even 50 percent (26-of-52) from the field.

Dixie State will face the winner of the No. 3 California Baptist/No. 6 Dominican University game in the PacWest Tournament semifinal on Friday, March 4, at 12:30 p.m. (PT), at the CU Arena on the Concordia University campus in Irvine.