LONDON, Ont. – A game-high 26 points from Greg Morrow helped the Western Mustangs finish out their first half schedule with a 76-66 victory over the Brock Badgers on Saturday night at Alumni Hall.

"To start off the game our defence was poor in the first quarter," said Mustangs head coach Brad Campbell. "We got it together in the second quarter, and I think the last three quarters our defence was relatively solid. That's got to be the way we play, is with tough defence. To keep a team like Brock, who likes to score about 85 a game, we had to keep them under 70 to have a chance to win- and we were able to do that."

Western now heads into the holiday break with a 5-3 record, putting them into a tie with Windsor for first place in the OUA West Division. Brock falls to 2-5 on the season, and occupies fourth in the OUA Central.

Morrow's 26 points came off of 10-14 shooting, including one three-pointer, while also recording five points from the free throw line. The forward also played a key role in the Mustangs defensive efforts, placing second on the team with seven rebounds and also added a block and two steals.

Two other Mustangs, first-year guard Jedson Tavernier and captain Quinn Henderson also hit double digits, contributing 10 and 11 points respectively. Second-year forward Cameron Morris had one of his strongest games of 2014, scoring a season-high nine points in 14 minutes of action.

"Jedson had two crucial buckets in the fourth quarter, a sweeping layup and a spin move off the glass, those were two big crunch time buckets," said Campbell when asked about the performance of the team's younger players against the Badgers. "Cam has been struggling a little bit shooting the ball, but he really came today and gave us points off the bench and some really quality minutes."

Brock's offence was led by forward Matt Marshall, who scored 21 points on the night, including going an impressive 3-for-4 from the three point line. Teammate Johneil Simpson also shot well from beyond the arc, scoring 12 of his 18 points from long distance.

Although the night would end with the scoreboard in the Mustangs favour, it was the Badgers that got out to a hot start on Saturday, taking a 6-5 lead just over three minutes into the game.  The visitors refused to relinquish their early advantage, and it eventually morphed into a 24-17 lead by the end of the first, thanks in large part to the efforts of Simpson and Zachary Angelini who combined for 12 points in the frame.

Western began to chip away at the Badgers lead right from the start of the second quarter, going on a long 14-3 run to take a 31-27 lead with just over three minutes remaining in the quarter. While Brock kept things closer in the final portions of the frame, Western headed into halftime with a 38-31 lead.

While the Mustangs carried the play for the majority of the second, things were more balanced after the half. Western slowly extended their lead throughout the frame with strong free throw shooting, although the Badgers kept the Mustangs from going on any significant uninterrupted scoring runs. After 30 minutes of play Western held a 60-48 lead.

Much to the delight of the Mustangs fans in attendance the purple and white maintained their lead throughout the final frame, and although the Badgers outscored Western 18-16 in the final 10 minutes they never narrowed the gap to less than eight points, leaving the Mustangs to walk away with a 76-66 win.

With their final regular season game of the calendar year now behind them, the Mustangs will enjoy some much deserved time off and work on preparing for the stretch drive when play resumes in 2015.

"We'll have a little break right now and start to retool and make some adjustments of things from the first half that we think need tweaking," said Campbell. "Basically we just need to continue to get better. The teams that play well are the teams that continue to get better, and that's we have to do. Some defensive tweaks, offensive tweaks, and we'll be fine."

The Mustangs will return to the court on January 7, 2015, with a road game against the Windsor Lancers. Game time is set for 8 p.m. and fans can watch all the action live on OUA.tv