BARTLESVILLE, Okla. – Jay Murphy scored a career-high 25 points, while Mike Balogun scored 23 points with nine rebounds and Branden Williams came off the bench to score ten points with nine rebounds as the Arkansas Tech Wonder Boys (17-13) downed Southwestern Oklahoma (16-13) 85-74 in the semifinals of the Great American Conference championship tournament on Saturday.

The Wonder Boys will now square off against East Central in Sunday's Great American Conference championship game. A 3:30 p.m. tip-off is scheduled. The game will be carried live on 100.9 (KWKK) FM in Russellville, with video coverage on the GAC Sports Network at www.gacsportsnetwork.com.

Southwestern Oklahoma seemed poised to seize the momentum right off the bat, downing a pair of 3-pointers less than a minute into the game to claim an early 6-0 lead. After a Tech time out, the Wonder Boys stormed back, and claimed the lead (10-9) on a Murphy 3-pointer with 16:43 to play in the opening half.

SWOSU's Martell Collins buried a quick 3-pointer to put the Bulldogs ahead 12-10, but the Wonder Boys battled back to reclaim the lead. Tech's lead was narrowed to one (19-18) with 10:11 remaining in the half, but the Wonder Boys unleashed a 16-0 run to claim a 35-18 lead with 6:03 remaining in the half.

The Bulldogs narrowed the Tech lead to six (36-30) with 1:10 to play before the Wonder Boys carried an eight-point (38-30) lead into the intermission.

The second half saw the Wonder Boys stretch the lead into double digits (44-34) with 17:52 remaining, before the Bulldogs once again narrowed the gap to 49-44 with 15:40 to play.

Once again, Arkansas Tech got hot and pushed its lead out to as many as 19 points (69-50), but the Bulldogs once again clawed back and cut the Tech lead to six (74-68) with 1:30 to play. However, the Wonder Boys were able to keep SWOSU from getting any closer and held on for the win.

Tech shot 54.7 percent for the game, hitting at a 58.3 percent clip in the second half.