Despite two Trailblazers scoring 20-plus points, Dixie State came out on the short end of a hard-fought 77-74 decision to WAC co-leader Grand Canyon on Friday night inside the Burns Arena. The Trailblazers, who were making their WAC home debut, saw their losing streak move to five-straight as DSU fell to 4-6 overall, 0-3 in conference play.

It was a game of runs over the first 20 minutes, and it was the Trailblazers who started out hot in the early going. Bucking a three-game trend that saw Dixie State get off to slow starts, the Blazers hit six of their first 12 shots of the night on their way to a 14-9 advantage.

GCU (9-3/3-0 WAC) chipped away at the deficit and eventually wrestled the lead away at 21-20 following a Mikey Dixon lay-in with 7:02 remaining in the frame.

Dixie State countered with an 11-2 spurt, including seven points from Cameron Gooden, to vault to its biggest lead of the night at 31-23 with 3:58 to go after a Jacob Nicolds bucket. While the Blazer offense was clicking, the DSU defense held the Lopes without a field goal for over four-plus minutes in the rally.

Following after a Grand Canyon timeout, the Lopes turned the tide and scored seven of the final nine points of the period to trim the DSU lead to 33-30 heading into the halftime break.

The two sides traded baskets to begin the second half, though Dixie State seemed to create a little separation after Gooden drained a 3-pointer to extend the Blazer lead to 45-39 with 16:53 on the clock. GCU quickly closed the gap with a 9-1 run and jumped back on top by a 48-46 count just two-plus minutes later.

Jarod Greene stopped the run with consecutive lay-ups and Isaiah Pope followed with a clutch corner 3-pointer to make a five point DSU lead at 53-48 and force GCU coach Bryce Drew to again call a timeout.

Like it did in the first half, the GCU timeout would again halt the Blazers' momentum as the Lopes went on to outscore DSU 13-6 to reclaim the lead at 61-59 following a Jovan Blacksher Jr. trey with a little over eight minutes to play.

After Gooden scored to record the 10^th tie of the game at 66-66 with five minutes left, Dixon poured in the next five GCU points, which kicked-started a decisive 11-4 run over a four-minute span that turned a tie game into a 77-70 GCU lead with 56 seconds to play.

Gooden hit a pair of free throws on DSU's next possession, and the Blazer defense forced a GCU shot clock violation on the Lopes' next trip down the court. Gooden then drew another foul with 11.9 seconds on the clock, and the junior knocked down both free throws to pull DSU to within three points.

Pope then picked off the Lopes' in-bounds pass, but he had the ball poked away and after a scrum, the Lopes regained possession on the held ball. GCU would again gift Dixie State a turnover on the ensuing throw in as Gabe McGlothan air-mailed a breakaway pass that went out of bounds on the other end of the court to give the Blazers one more look to tie the game with 6.4 seconds remaining.

However the Trailblazers could not get a shot off before the final horn sounded and the Lopes escaped with the three-point win.
 
"We did some things tonight that we've been working on all week and it was good to see it actually work in the game," Head Coach Jon Judkins said. "Grand Canyon is good, they're big and they're experienced. I thought we did a good job defensively, I think some of our stuff worked and we were playing hard. I was happy with our toughness."

Senior forward Hunter Schofield led all scorers with a season-high 23 points on 10-of-16 shooting before fouling out late in the second half. Schofield, who also grabbed six rebounds, scored 13 of those points in the first half, which helped DSU maintain its lead for much of the first half.

Meanwhile Gooden added 22 points, 13 of which came after halftime, to go with six rebounds and three assists.

Dixie State shot 45.2 percent (28-of-62) for the game, including a 38.1 clip (8-of-21) from the perimeter. DSU, which had one more made basket than GCU, also became the first team this season to out-shoot Grand Canyon from the floor as the Lopes were 43.5 percent (27-of-62) from the floor (8-of-23, .348 3FG).

DSU lost the rebounding battle, 43-32, including a 14-7 count on the offensive glass, which led to 20 second-chance GCU points (20-8). Dixon led four Lopes in double figures with 17 points.

"[GCU] went on that little run and we missed shots, but then we gave up too many offensive rebounds [on the run]," Judkins noted. "That's where they hurt us and that's where we need to get better.

"I thought our guys played extremely hard tonight, but so did [Grand Canyon]," said Judkins. "We're going to be sore, they're going to be sore, this quick turnaround is going to be tough. The team that is mentally tough tomorrow will make the difference. Both teams are tired, both teams are beat up, but we have to play through it. If we're mentally tough I think we have a chance."

The two teams will complete the two-game weekend conference set on Saturday night inside the Burns Arena at 7 p.m.