Dixie State picked up its sixth-straight Pacific West Conference victory in convincing fashion with a 78-59 win over Dominican University Wednesday night in the Burns Arena. The PacWest leading Trailblazers improved to 11-4 on the season and 8-1 in conference play.

Dominican (4-11/3-6 PacWest) led for most of the first half, thanks in part to a cold shooting start for the Trailblazers, as the Penguins led by as many as six points in the early going. DSU missed 16 of its first 21 shots to open the game, though the Trailblazers managed to connect on 11-of-12 from the foul line to keep the game close.

Trailing 21-16 with a little more than eight minutes to play until the halftime break, Dixie State locked down the Penguins defensively as the Trailblazers closed the first half on an 18-2 run, including 12-straight points over the final 6:35 of the stanza, en route to a 34-23 lead at the intermission.

Dixie State was never really challenged in the second half as DSU never saw its lead dip below seven points over the final 20 minutes of play. Leading 60-52 with 4:53 to play, the Trailblazers put the game on ice with a decisive 18-7 run, which was sparked by a Brandon Simister (St. George, Utah/Desert Hills HS) 3-pointer from the left wing, and DSU coasted the rest of the way for the win.

"I wrote in the board at halftime, 18-2 at eight-minute mark, and it was all right there on the defensive end," DSU Head Coach Jon Judkins said. "The shots we missed [in the first half] were good shots, we just missed them."

Trevor Hill (Sandy, Utah/Alta HS) led a balanced scoring attack as he poured in a game-high tying 15 points, which included a 7-of-8 effort from the foul line. Hill also finished with six rebounds, four assists, two steals and a career-high tying three blocks.

Simister chipped in 12 points and dished out a game-high six assists, while Quincy Mathews (St. George, Utah/Desert Hills HS) tallied 10 points off the bench. Austin Montgomery (Gainesville, Ga./Lakeview Academy), who started in his fourth-straight game, finished with nine points and a career-high tying eight rebounds, and Marcus Bradley (Anaheim, Calif./Corona del Mar HS) collected eight points and a career-high three blocks.

Dixie State finished 26-of-59 (.441) from the floor, though the Trailblazers hit on 21-of-38 (.552) over the final 28 minutes of the game. DSU struggled from the perimeter, going just 3-of-15 (.200) from beyond the arc, but Dixie State did manage to post its second-best free throw percentage of the season with a 82.1 percent clip (23-of-28), including a perfect 10-of-10 in the second half.  Dixie State also finished with 18 assists on its 26 made field goals, while the Trailblazers turned the ball over a season-low eight times.

"I thought going 10-for-10 from the foul line in the second half was big because we kept [Dominican] at 10 [point lead] and we could never get past that, but we never really got below that either, and that's because we were making our foul shots. Earlier in the year we were missing those shots and tonight we kept that lead because we made them."

DSU held Dominican to 36.6 percent shooting (26-of-71) from the floor and 3-of-20 (.150) from the perimeter. Dixie State also forced 14 Penguin turnovers and tallied team defensive season-highs of nine steals and eight blocks, though the Penguins did outrebound Dixie State by a slim 42-40 count, including an 18-11 margin on the offensive glass. Reverend Maduakor led three Penguins in double figures with 15 points.

"We can always play defense, but tonight we did not rebound very well," Judkins noted. "[Rebounding] was the one area we got beat on tonight and we have to do a better job."

Dixie State heads back out on the road for a two-game PacWest trip to sunny southern California this weekend. The Trailblazers open the trip in San Diego with an afternoon tilt at Point Loma on Saturday, Jan. 14 at 4 p.m. (PT). DSU will then head north to Irvine to face Concordia-Irvine on Monday, Jan. 16 at 7:30 p.m. (PT).