SEGUIN, Texas -- The Texas Lutheran men's basketball team claimed a come-from-behind victory on Friday night, taking down former SCAC foe Southwestern, 84-77 in the 2025-26 home opener.
Semaj Edwards (Lanham, MD/Oak Hill) scored a season-high 22 points and
Teddy Tapken added 20 points to lead the Bulldogs to victory.
The matchup saw just three lead changes, all coming in the second half, as the Bulldogs pulled out the victory despite trailing for all but 4:25 seconds on Friday. TLU is now 3-1 in home openers in the Falke era.
Edwards led TLU with 22 points as the Oak Hill alum shot 7-of-14 from the field and was 6-of-8 from the free throw line.
Tapken scored 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting and was a perfect 6-of-6 at the foul line to net his fifth-straight of 20 or more points dating back to last season. Tapken also grabbed six rebounds and dished out a team-high five assists.
Mason Wallace (San Antonio/Judson) added 16 points and ten rebounds for his second career double-double.
Kevin Juarez (Pasadena/Pasadena) also reached double figures with 11 points, a new career-high.
Southwestern led for the entire first half but the Bulldogs never went away as the Pirates never led by more than seven points in the half and only took a two point lead into halftime following a buzzer beating layup from Edwards.
After hanging around throughout the early part of the second half, TLU took their first lead of the game at the 7:05 mark in the second half following a layup from Edwards. The Bulldogs would lose their slim lead for around three minutes before a layup from Tapken tied it and a pair of free throws from Edwards gave the Bulldogs a two-point lead with 4:01 remaining. Southwestern was never able to get the game even again with TLU leading by as many as eight points.
TLU is back in action on Sunday afternoon when they face 20th-ranked Hardin-Simmons in a rematch of this year's tightly-contested season opener. Tip-off is scheduled for 2 PM. The game will be streamed on FloCollege. All streaming and live stats links will be available on tlubulldogs.com.
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