Dixie State began its final road trip of the 2020-21 season on a sour note thanks to an 87-72 loss at Utah Valley on Friday night at the UCCU Center. The game, which was the first regular season meeting between to two old in-state junior college rivals, was also the inaugural game of the newly announced "Old Hammer Rivalry" between the now WAC opponents.

Dixie State (6-10/2-7 WAC) fell into a quick 18-9 hole in the game's first five minutes as UVU opened the game by hitting on seven of its first eight shots, six of which were within point blank range. Meanwhile the Trailblazers were just 3-of-9 from the floor in the early going.

DSU looked to get back on track offensively thanks to the Blazer bench. Andre Mulibea hit a pair of 3-pointers, while Trevon Allfrey knocked down a jumper in the paint to make it a 20-17 game with just over 12 minutes to play in the period.

Utah Valley then broke the game open, rattling off a 19-2 run, including 10-straight points to close the spurt, to race to a 39-19 advantage with 5:18 to go.

However the Trailblazers made a run of their own to close the stanza, which was kickstarted by consecutive "And One" conversions by Frank Staine and Cameron Gooden. Gooden would account for seven of DSU's final 17 points as the Blazers outscored UVU 17-5 to trail by a 44-36 count heading into the halftime break.

"We just let [UVU] do whatever they wanted to start the game and we couldn't get any stops," Head Coach Jon Judkins said. "I thought if we could cut [the deficit] down to 10 or less before [halftime] then here we go, and our guys did that."

Unfortunately the momentum Dixie State created did not make it out of the locker room with the team as the Blazers misfired on 10 of their first 12 shots and turned the ball over five times to begin the second half.

The Wolverines took full advantage, outscoring DSU 18-4 over the first seven-plus minutes to build a 22-point cushion, and they never looked back from there to claim the victory.

"We came out in the second half flat as flat again, and we go from being down eight to down 22. We can't keep giving up those runs," Judkins noted. "Tonight I thought our offense was fine. We missed shots, yeah, but we turned the ball over more.

"But really the game [was decided] by defense," Judkins added. "UVU took it at us and they did whatever they wanted to do. To me it felt like a practice game for them, they could work on their offense."

The DSU bench accounted for a season-high 45 of the Blazers' 72 points on the night, led by a career-high 18 points from Allfrey on 6-of-10 shooting. The freshman forward also just missed his first collegiate double-double as he pulled down a career and team high nine rebounds and added a career-best three blocks to his stat line for good measure.

Meanwhile Mulibea finished with 14 points, which was one off of his career high point total. In addition, Brock Gilbert dished out a game-high seven assists in 13-plus reserve minutes.

Dixie State was held to 37.7 percent (26-of-69) shooting in the game, including a 29.2 percent clip (7-of-24) from the perimeter. DSU shot 81.3 percent (13-of-16) from the line and had 22 assists on its 26 made baskets, but was hampered by 17 turnovers and was outrebounded by a 44-37 count.

Trey Woodbury led four Wolverines in scoring with 18 points, while the nation's leading rebounder Fardaws Aimaq tallied 13 boards to go with 13 points. UVU shot a sizzling 54.0 percent (34-of-63) from the floor, 35.3 percent (6-of-17) from 3-point country, but were just 13-of-30 (.433) at the line.

"The good thing is that we get to play [UVU] again tomorrow," Judkins concluded. "I don't think we could've played any worse, but there are things we need to fix."

Dixie State will look to pull even in the "Old Hammer Rivalry" series as the two teams meet again in the UCCU Center on Saturday night at 6 p.m.