GEORGETOWN, Texas -- Alex Cage, the Bulldogs' leading scorer off the bench, notched 16 of his game-high 26 points in the second half to lift the Bulldogs to a 75-69 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference road victory over Southwestern University Tuesday night.

TLU, coming in a half game back behind the Pirates, improved to 11-6 on the year and moved into sole possession of first place in conference standings with a 6-2 mark. The Pirates' dropped to 8-8 overall and to 5-2 in the SCAC.

At the Robertson Center, Cage (Austin/McNeil) went 10-for-18 from the field and hit three of his six three-point attempts. He added four rebounds and three assists.

The Pirates held a 9-5 lead, their largest lead of the half, at the 15:32 mark before Sebastian Andrade (El Paso/Americas) hit a jumper to cut the lead down to two. Jacob Kouremetis (San Antonio/O'Connor) scored one in the paint to make it a one-point game with 13:44 on the clock. Back and forth scoring from both teams until seeing a 17-17 score with 10:30 left to go.

TLU pulled away and held three eight-points leads. The Bulldogs held a six-point lead,35-29 following a Jackson Willoughby (Port Aransas/Port Aransas) free throw at 1:11. 

Southwestern cut the TLU lead in half with 1:08 remaining in the half, before Harris Jowell (Brock/Brock) hit a layup to push the lead to half with 34 seconds left to play. The Pirates had two scoring opportunities in the final 30 seconds of play, but were unable to close the gap before the final buzzer sounded.

Jowell notched his third double-double of the season with 11 rebounds and 10 points. Jowell claimed the only two blocks of the night for TLU.

At the half, the Bulldogs lead 37-32.

TLU shot 14-for-27 (52 percent) overall in the first half and shot 44 percent (4-for-9) from the arc.

After Southwestern moved within one at the 17:01 mark of the second half, Nathan Josephs (San Antonio/Texas State) scored on back-to-back possessions and Kouremetis drained a three-pointer to push the TLU lead quickly back to six with 16:16 remaining.

After a Josephs' three, the Pirates' Ryan Wheeler responded a fast break layup. Willoughby reciprocated with a slam dunk assisted by Kouremetis to kick off a Bulldog scoring rally.

TLU lead by as many as 10 points in the second half. Southwestern closed within three points, on two separate occasions in the final three minutes of play.

Josephs was the third Bulldog to hit double-digit figures, with 12 points. Willoughby and Kouremetis chipped in nine and eight points, respectively. They both pulled down five rebounds and tallied at least one assist. 

In the second half, the Bulldogs shot 48 percent (13-of-27) from the field and 90 percent (9-of-10) from the foul line.

The Bulldogs return home for Friday's conference doubleheader with the University of Dallas. The women's game starts at 5:30 p.m., and the men's game starts at 7:30 p.m.

Seguin radio station KWED 1580 AM will broadcast both TLU v. Dallas contests. The audio stream will be available on seguintoday.com. Links to the TLU video broadcast (with KWED audio), the live stats, and the KWED webcast will be available on tlubulldogs.com.