Dixie State opened its final homestand of the 2020-21 season on a sour note as the Trailblazers dropped a 77-59 decision to fellow Western Athletic Conference newcomer Tarleton State on Friday night inside the Burns Arena.

The Trailblazers (7-11/3-8 WAC) were plagued by another slow start, and the Texans took full advantage, scoring 16-straight points as part of a 19-2 run that turned an early 7-4 DSU lead into a 23-9 Tarleton advantage just nine minutes into the game.

DSU missed seven of its first 10 shots and turned the ball over five times in that opening stretch and could not get into any rhythm offensively. Meanwhile the Texans nursed a double-digit lead for most of the period and wound up taking a 36-23 lead into the halftime break.

Dixie State managed to trim the deficit to 10 points at 41-31 three minutes into the second half, thanks in large part to Hunter Schofield, who scored the Blazers' first eight points of the period.

However the Texans would put together another run, this time a 14-4 spurt over the next six minutes, to bolt out to their biggest lead of the night at 55-35 following a Montre Gipson bucket with 11:55 to play.

The Blazers countered with 10-straight points of their own, eight of which came at the foul line, and managed to cut Tarleton's advantage to single digits at 57-48 after a Lleyton Parker 3-pointer with 7:49 remaining.

However that would be as close as Dixie State would get as Tarleton quickly extended back to a 15-point cushion and the Texans maintained their double-digit lead the rest of the way.

"Give Tarleton a lot of credit, they came out ready to play tonight," said DSU Head Coach Jon Judkins. "It seems like we are back in that mode of where we play good one night, and then the next night we don't show up.

"We couldn't keep [Tarleton] in front of us [defensively], they are very, very explosive, which we knew," Judkins added. "[Tarleton] came out with a lot of energy and they played extremely hard. They pressured us, they got physical with us, and we got to do a better job handling pressure and be tough, and tonight we weren't."

Schofield scored 18 of his team-high 20 points after halftime and wound up with his second (and fifth career) double-double of the season with a game-high 11 rebounds. Dason Youngblood was the only other Blazer player in double figures as he finished with 10 points to go with two assists and three steals.

Dixie State shot a season-low 30.4 percent (17-of-56) from the floor and was a paltry 4-of-23 (.174) from the perimeter. DSU also connected on 21-of-28 (.750) from the line and outrebounded the Texans by a 38-31 margin, 17-4 on the offensive glass, though the Trailblazers only managed six second-chance points.

"We had a lot of open looks tonight, we took 23 threes, and we make four of them," Judkins noted. "I don't there was one that was forced, we just didn't shoot the ball. It's just one of those nights where we couldn't shoot it, we couldn't guard, it just seemed like tonight we were all a little off."

Texans reserve forward Konstantin Dotsenko led all scorers with 23 points, while Gipson finished with 16 points. Tarleton enjoyed an even 50.0 percent (25-of-50) shooting night, which included a 6-of-12 clip (.500) from 3-point country.

Dixie State will look to square the two-game set on Saturday night when the two teams meet again inside the Burns Arena at 7 p.m.