RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. — Using a huge effort from Mike Balogun, who scored 22 of his game-high 25 points in the second half, the Arkansas Tech men's basketball team quickly pulled away after halftime to complete the season sweep over Northwestern Oklahoma with an 83-63 victory Thursday night at Tucker Coliseum.

Balogun matched his season high with the 25 points, which came on 10-of-16 shooting and 5-of-9 from beyond the arc, while D.J. Jethroe added seven points, 11 rebounds and three steals for the Wonder Boys (11-12, 7-8 Great American Conference), who took a three-point lead at the half and opened it up to 21 points thanks to a 42-24 run to open the second half.

"We talked about at halftime that I thought we dominated all the statistics as far as turnovers, rebounds, free throws," coach Chad Kline said. "There's nothing you can do about missed shots, but I liked our effort. I thought we came out ready to play."

The hosts shot out to a five-point lead after just 2:20, riding a 3-pointer from Balogun, two free throws out of Jethroe and a layup from Clarence Willard to push the lead to 7-2. The Rangers would climb back into the contest, twice taking the lead by a single point. The final lead of the first half for NWOSU was 12-11 with 12:36 left, and the Wonder Boys took off from there, riding three straight 3-pointers from Tyler Friedel and a dunk from Gary Gaskins to an 11-0 run and 22-12 lead with 9:03 to go in the half.

The Wonder Boys went cold from there though, making just one of their final 11 shots from the field the rest of the half, which allowed the Rangers to net the next 10 points of the game and tie the game up once again with 4:55 left before the break. A Nick Wayman jumper ended that run and gave Tech the lead for the rest of the first half, and a perfect 4-for-4 performance from the line by Willard over the final three minutes kept the advantage at 29-26 at intermission.

The cold shooting didn't last through halftime, as the Wonder Boys made their first three buckets, and—after a brief period where the contest was tied at 31-all — a hot shooting touch gave Tech the upper hand the rest of the way. A Balogun layup gave his team the lead for good with 18:05 to play, and his 3-pointer 22 seconds later lifted the advantage to five. That was the start of a 23-7 run that saw Tech lead by as many as 18 after Wayman hit a trey at the 11:39 mark, with Balogun netting 16 of the Wonder Boys points through that stretch.

The Rangers got as close as 10 at 56-46 with 8:11 to play, but the visitors could not get the deficit back to single digits. Instead, a pair of free throws and a 3-pointer from Jay Murphy stretched the lead back to 15 just 31 seconds later, and two more triples out of Balogun pushed it to 20 before the teams emptied their benches.

Friedel's early stretch helped him get to 10 points on the night, while Willard tallied eight points, four rebounds and five assists. The Wonder Boys won the rebounding battle 40-27, including grabbing 14 offensive boards. Tech shot 17-of-25 in the second half and 7-of-11 from deep.

The Wonder Boys face Southern Nazarene Saturday in a 3 p.m. tipoff.