Despite four players scoring in double figures, Dixie State could not complete its first RMAC weekend sweep as the Trailblazers were stopped by Colorado State-Pueblo, 77-66, Saturday night inside the Burns Arena.

For the second-straight night, Dixie State found itself in an early hole as the ThunderWolves (3-8/1-4 RMAC) bolted out to a quick 11-5 after the first six minutes of play. DSU shook off the slow start with an 8-2 spurt to pull even at 13-13 following a Matt Conway 3-pointer, then Jack Pagenkopf gave the Blazers a 17-16 lead on a steal and breakaway lay-in with 6:33 to go until the intermission.

CSU-Pueblo wasted little time wrestling the lead right back with a 13-2 run spurred on by consecutive treys from Tyson Gilbert and Donovan Oldham, to open its biggest lead of the stanza at 29-19 with 2:38 on the clock. Dixie State (4-4/2-3 RMAC) managed to weather the storm, eventually trimming the deficit to 31-28 on a Pagenkopf bucket right before the halftime buzzer.

CSU-P started out quickly to open the second half, outscoring DSU 9-2 to push its lead back up the double digits at 40-30. The Blazers then countered with a 14-3 run, with 10 of those points coming off the bench from Cameron Chatwin (6 pts.) and Andre Wilson (4 pts.), as Dixie State took its final lead of the night at 44-43 after a Dub Price lay-in with 13:21 remaining.

Dixie State could not come up with key stops it needed on the defensive end as the ThunderWolves maintained a two-possession lead over the next six-plus minutes and would eventually push the advantage back to double-digits at 62-52 with just under six minutes to go.

DSU stayed within striking distance and pulled to within 65-60 after another Conway three-ball with 3:52 to go, but that would be as close as the Trailblazers would get as the CSU-P hit on 10-of-12 from the line down the stretch to salt away the victory.

"Give Pueblo credit, they had a good game plan," DSU Head Coach Jon Judkins said. "We tried a number of different things to spark our team tonight. We tried to press, we tried substitutions, we tried a number of things to get us going. We didn't play together tonight and it showed. Last night [DSU win vs. NM Highlands] we played together, and tonight [CSU-P] played together and we did not."

Chatwin finished the night with a career-high 18 points on 4-of-5 shooting with a pair of 3-pointers and an 8-of-9 effort at the line. The junior also pulled down a career-high seven rebounds and blocked one shot in 19 minutes. Wilson also added a career-best 10 points with four caroms as the DSU bench accounted for 32 of DSU's 66 points on the night. Conway went a perfect 3-of-3 from beyond the arc on his way to 13 points and Pagenkopf chipped in 10 points with four assists and two steals.

Dixie State shot an even 40.0 percent (24-of-60) from the floor and drained seven 3-pointers on a season-high 22 attempts (.318). DSU also hit on 78.6 percent (11-of-14) at the line and turned the ball over a season-low 10 times, but the Blazers were outrebounded 44-27, including a 14-7 count on the offensive glass.

"We've got to figure it out – we're five games into our conference season and we have to learn and get better," Judkins added. "We can't continue having a good game and then a bad game. A lot of times that's on our maturity and on our leadership and that's how you fix those issues.

"We'll bounce back and prepare to play a really good team [at Saint Martin's] on Tuesday at their place. Sometimes we've played better against the better teams so we'll see what our team is made out of. We're excited for the challenge."

Oldham led all scorers with 23 points on 8-of-16 shooting to go with 10 rebounds, while Gilbert finished with 14 points and four assists. CSU-Pueblo shot 41.8 percent from the floor (23-of-55) and went 23-of-30 (.767) at the charity stripe.

Dixie State closes out the non-conference portion of its 2018-19 schedule with a pair of road games, the first coming this Tuesday night at nationally-ranked Saint Martin's beginning at 7 p.m. (PT), in Lacey, Wash.