SIU Carbondale beat SIU Edwardsville, 82-61, to mark the end of a four-game road trip for the Salukis.

In the game against the Cougars (1-5), the Salukis (5-3) were in their fourth straight road game of the schedule.

Saluki senior forward Armon Fletcher, who is an Edwardsville native was just eight points shy of reaching 1,000 points in his SIU career entering the game.

Southern held a 9-1 record over their sister school before the game started, with the lone loss being in 2015 at Carbondale.

A three-pointer by the Cougars opened the scoring for the game, however the Dawgs answered with an 8-0 run led by a jumper and a three-pointer by senior guard Sean Lloyd Jr. to make it 8-3.

Fletcher scored on a dunk for his first points of the game to make it 10-7 for Carbondale.

At the halfway point of the first half SIU led 19-15 after a three-pointer by Fletcher.

With 6:26 left in the first half Fletcher made a three-pointer pushing his point total to eight, and thus making him a 1,000 point scorer as the Salukis then led 26-19.

Fletcher finished with 24 points on 100 percent shooting behind the three-point line, also adding nine rebounds for the Dawgs.

Senior center Thik Bol made one free throw to push Southern out to a 27-19 lead with 5:53 left in the half.

Freshman guard Darius Beane made a three-pointer to push the lead out for the Salukis to 35-26 with just over two minutes left in the half.

Junior guard Aaron Cook made a layup in the last minute of the half to put Carbondale ahead 37-29 heading into halftime.

After a jumper by Lloyd, Fletcher made a three-pointer and a layup coming out of halftime giving the Salukis the lead 44-31.

Southern went on a 10-0 run led by four points from Fletcher and four from Bol to push the lead out to 57-37 in the second half.

Bol finished with 11 points, four rebounds, and one block for Carbondale.

The Cougars responded to the Saluki run with their own 6-0 run to pull the game within 14 at 57-43 at the halfway mark of the second half.

Senior guard Marcus Bartley forced a turnover on Edwardsville, which then led to a three-pointer by senior guard Eric McGill to give Southern the 64-48 lead with 6:20 left in the game.

Cook made a layup with two minutes left in the game to keep the lead for SIU at 73-58.

Cook finished with ten points and four assists for Southern.

The Salukis closed the game on a 9-2 run led by four free throws from McGill to take the win in Edwardsville 82-61.

This game marked the end of a four-game road trip for the Dawgs, as they come home with a 3-1 record on the trip.

SIU will be back in action Wednesday, Dec. 5, against Saint Louis University, who was selected preseason as number one in the Atlantic ten conference, tip-off is set for 7 p.m. at SIU Arena.

Sports reporter Adam Warfel can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @warfel_adam.

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