Dixie State closed out the 2016-17 regular season in style with a 78-60 Pacific West Conference victory over Holy Names on Senior Night Saturday in the Burns Arena. The Trailblazers finished regular season 19-7 overall, 16-4 and in third place in the PacWest standings.

Bolstered by the return of senior Josh Fuller (Rexburg, Idaho/Madison HS), who returned the DSU line-up after missing the last 14 games due to injury, the Trailblazers opened the game with a 9-2 run en route to a 23-7 lead midway through first half. Fuller hit Dixie State's first two shots in his only two minutes of action as eight different Trailblazers scored over the first 10 minutes as part of a balanced scoring attack.

However the Hawks (6-22/5-15 PacWest) flipped the script in the second 10 minutes of the stanza as HNU hit seven 3-pointers and outscored DSU 30-15, including a 21-9 spurt over a span of seven-plus minutes to close the frame, to trim the Dixie State advantage to 38-37 at the halftime break.

Holy Names would take its only lead of the game at 39-38 as the Hawks scored after forcing a turnover on DSU's opening possession of the second half. That play would serve as a wake-up for the Trailblazers as they rattled off 10-straight points as part of a decisive 19-3 run to reclaim their 16-point lead at 58-42 with 11:50 remaining.

Six different Trailblazers scored during the rally, which included a pair of thunderous dunks from Trevor Hill (Sandy, Utah/Alta HS), five points from Brandon Simister (St. George, Utah/Desert Hills HS), and a long-range trey from Wade Miller (Tremonton, Utah/Bear River HS) that brought the Burns Arena crowd to its feet and forced an HNU timeout.

Dixie State cruised home from there as the Trailblazers extended their lead to as many as 20 points before settling for the final margin of victory.

"We played well for the first eight minutes [of the first half] and got to that big lead and thought 'well here we go,' but those last 12 minutes for us were not really good," DSU Head Coach Jon Judkins said. "We came out in the second half and played together, we started to defend, we started to rebound, and we started to run, and then we went on that [second half] run."

Simister hit four 3-pointers on the night to pace the Trailblazers with 14 points and finished with six assists, while Zac Hunter (American Fork, Utah/American Fork HS) poured in eight of his 12 points on 4-of-4 shooting (6-of-8 overall) in the second half to spur on DSU's decisive run.Meanwhile Hill tied a career-high with eight assists to go along with eight points, six rebounds and three steals, and senior Marcus Bradley (Anaheim, Calif./Corona del Mar HS) pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds and had three blocks and four points in his final home game. In all, all 12 Trailblazers who played tonight scored and had at least one rebound.

Dixie State shot a season-high 56.7 percent from the floor (34-of-60), including a blistering 63.0 percent (17-of-27) in the second half. The Trailblazers also hit 7-of-14 (.500) from the perimeter and outrebounded the Hawks by a 45-24 margin. In addition, DSU finished with a season-high 23 assists on its 34 made baskets.

After giving up eight HNU 3-pointers (8-of-15; .533) in the first half, the Trailblazer defense held the Hawks to just 3-of-13 (.231) from beyond the arc in the second half and limited HNU to a 36.2 percent (21-of-58) shooting night overall. Dante Robinson led four Hawks in double figures with 14 points.

"We've just got to realize that when we defend, rebound and run, we're really good," Judkins added. "When we only do one or two of those things, we're average, but if we do those three things we're pretty good."

Dixie State will be the third-seed in next week's Pacific West Conference Men's Basketball Tournament, which will be held March 2-4, at Concordia-Irvine's CUI Arena in Irvine, Calif. The Trailblazers will play No. 6-seed Point Loma in Thursday's quarterfinal round at 2:45 p.m. (PT). The winner of the tourney will earn the PacWest's automatic bid to the NCAA West Regionals, which will be held March 10-13 (site TBD).