By ANTHONY SHINGLER | Assistant Sports Editor

The Govs might have very well seen freshman shooting guard Justin Blake grow up in front of their very eyes. Blake’s 3-pointer with 10.9 seconds to play lifted APSU to a 56-55 come-from-behind win against Morehead State, Sunday, Jan. 31, afternoon at Dave Aaron Arena.

Blake’s 3-pointer finished off a 12-point second half comeback win for the Govs.

The win improves the Govs to 13-10 overall, 7-4 in the Ohio Valley Conference. With the loss, Morehead State is still sitting in second place in the conference, falling to 15-7 overall, 9-2 in the OVC.

“He (Justin Blake) was feeling pretty comfortable, playing with a lot confidence right now,” said APSU head coach Dave Loos. “He got an open look and he drilled it.”

The first half, APSU shot an ice cold 6-of-21 (29 percent) from the field, and 1-of-6 from three-point range.

Even the poor shooting performance in the first half, the Govs only trailed 30-18 at half.

“I told our guys at halftime, we were making an enormous amount of mistakes, but we were playing really hard on the defensive end,” said Loos.

The second half opened up with MSU surging to a 16-point lead 39-23 with 15:55 left in the game.

But the Govs fought back to within four on a 3-pointer from Caleb Brown, 39-35 with 12:31 remaining.

But preseason Conference Player of the Year, Kenneth Faried made his presence felt over the next seven minutes, to help MSU to push their lead to 51-40 with 6:03 remaining.

“He (Faried) is a good player, real good player, said center John Fraley. “It is just a job in itself (to defend him).”

The Govs, looked down and out, but clawed their way back slowly, thanks to a defense that created opportunities on the offensive side of the floor.

“I told them if we could keep that up and get something going offensively without turning the ball over, we’d have a chance,” said Loos.

With the MSU lead slowly dwindling away, a dunk by Fraley cut the lead to 52-49 with 2:14 left was the spark APSU was looking for.

The Govs kept the defensive pressure, holding MSU to three points over the final minute and 26 seconds. The last point came from Faried’s one-for two from the free throw line.

“That (Fraley’s dunk) can usually give you a big lift,” said Loos. “I thought John played hard.”

After a time-out by APSU, Blake would strike with 1:03 left on a layup to cut the lead to 54-53.

Following a foul from Fraley, Faried was at the free throw line, where he hit one of two. Then Blake would get the ball from Caleb Brown, and sunk the three that had the entire Dunn Center on their feet.

MSU would get two opportunities to score, but both fell short. Wesley Channels lead the way for the Govs and for the 12th time this season he was the team leader in scoring with 17 points. Blake finished with 14 points including the remaining five points for the Govs.

MSU was lead by Faried’s double-double of 19 points and 13 rebounds, Maze Stallworth’s 12 points, and Demonte Harper 11 points.

The Govs will go on the road Thursday, Feb. 4 to face University of Tennessee-Martin with a 7:30 p.m. tip-off.

Then finish up their road trip with a visit to conference leader, Murray State, with a 7:30 p.m. tip-off.

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