SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The University of Missouri-St. Louis men's basketball team held off a late rally to defeat Illinois Springfield 69-64 to pick up its first win of the season at The Recreation and Athletic Center on Saturday afternoon. The Tritons improve to 1-5, 1-0 GLVC while the Prairie Stars drop to 3-3, 0-1 GLVC.

UIS jumped out to an early five-point lead just over five minutes into the game before UMSL went on a 9-2 run over the next three minutes to take a 15-13 lead on a layup from Terrell Kabala.

The Prairie Stars retook the lead on a layup by Jack Weber but that would be its last lead of the contest as the Tritons ran off eight in a row highlighted by a three-pointer from Janeir Harris and layups from Savon Wykle and Troy Glover II to take a six-point lead with less than seven minutes to play in the half.

UIS fought back to within two but couldn't get any closer as UMSL ran off five straight to build its largest lead of the half at 30-23 on a three from Wykle with 3:00 left in the stanza.

The Prairie Stars closed the half scoring seven of the final nine points to cut the Triton lead to 32-30 at the intermission.

UMSL opened the second half on a 12-3 run to extend its lead to 11 after a layup from Wykle less than five minutes in. Wykle and Harris combined for nine of the Tritons 12 points in the run.

UIS wouldn't go without a fight answering with a 9-2 run to cut UMSL's lead to 46-42 with 11:20 left.

The Tritons extended their lead back to seven on a layup from Glover II with just over five minutes to play but the Prairie Stars countered with a three from Max Kunnert to draw within four on the next possession.

UMSL still led by four when Matt Enright hit a big three with less than 2:30 to play to extend the lead to seven. The lead grew back to double digits in the final minute on two free throws from Emanuel Prospere II but UIS scored nine of the final 13 points for the final margin.

The Tritons hit their free throws down the stretch while the Prairie Stars struggled to make theirs. Wykle played all 40 minutes and led four UMSL players in scoring with 14 points while Harris and Prospere II had 13 points each and Enright dropped in 10 more. Wykle also led the team with seven rebounds.

The Tritons shot 53 percent (27-for-51) from the field in the contest including 5-of-16 from three and shot 83 percent at the charity stripe. They outscored UIS 44-to-28 in points in the paint and their bench finished with 32 points to 19 for the Prairie Stars.

UIS was held to 46 percent shooting (25-for-54) from the field, was 5-of-14 from three but shot 41 percent at the foul line. Kunnert led all scorers with 28 points in the contest.

UMSL begins a three-game homestand on Monday (Dec. 2) hosting Maryville at 7:30 p.m. at the Mark Twain Building.