CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — (ESPN CLARKSVILLE) In a dominant performance, Austin Peay State University men’s basketball team controlled every aspect of the second half and turned a close contest into a lopsided affair in a 95-68 win against Purdue Fort Wayne, Saturday, in the Dunn Center.

Austin Peay (6-4) survived early foul trouble to key components of a still-shorthanded lineup to take down Purdue Fort Wayne (6-7) for the first time in program history—the same Mastodon squad which beat Ohio Valley Conference foe Eastern Illinois by 44 points back on Nov. 28.

Call it a post-exam malaise, call it whatever you like—shot-making was a chore for both teams in the early going, with the teams hitting just five of their first 18 shots and Austin Peay’s Shotmaker-in-Chief, Zach Glotta, hitting the bench early in foul trouble.

But where others might struggle to fill a void from the outside, the Govs simply turned to Terry Taylor. The sophomore responded with 18 first-half points, shouldering the load while the rest of the team might’ve been struggling—at one point, Taylor was 5-of-8 from the floor while the rest of the Govs sat at 3-of-10.

As the Govs began to heat up, the Mastodons went cold, failing to make a shot from the floor for over six minutes in the first half. And even when the visitors made a run, Glotta made sure to send the Govs into the break on a high note, beating the buzzer with a three to take a 46-39 lead into halftime.

The Govs jumped out to a 20-8 run to open the second half and never looked back. Sophomore Dayton Gumm energized the crowd on back-to-back possessions, getting a fast-break layup to drop and then stepping back for a three-pointer to put the Govs ahead by 13—the lead never reached single digits again for the game’s remainder.

If Taylor was shouldering a load in the first half, he was joined on the block and in the scoring column for much of the final 20 minutes by grad transfer Jabari McGhee. The Albany, Georgia native scored 12 of his career-high 20 points in the final frame, including five during the half-opening run and five over the final 4:40 of play.

The Governors imposed their will on the glass, particularly on the offensive end of the floor. Austin Peay’s plus-15 rebounding advantage (43-28) was its largest against a Division I opponent since Jan. 6, 2018 (against Southeast Missouri), with 17 offensive boards leading to 19 second-chance points. The Govs have accrued 38 combined offensive boards in the last two games, and are at plus-47 overall in rebounding margin over the last three games.