ST. LOUIS - One year ago last Friday at Maryville, Cory Myers scored his 1,000th career point and did it with Truman's first triple-double in over 22 years en route to a blowout win over the Saints. But you know how the saying goes, "Anything you can do, I can do better." Thursday night in Moloney Arena, Jake Velky (pictured) became the 29th member of the Bulldogs' 1,000-point club before hitting a game-winning 35 footer at the buzzer to end it, 75-74 (video).

With the win, Truman (12-7, 7-3 GLVC) handed Maryville (15-4, 7-3 GLVC) its first home loss of the season (10-1) and snapped the Saints' five-game winning streak. The Bulldogs improved to 2-3 in games decided by five points or less this year, 8-2 in the all-time series with Maryville and head coach, Chris Foster, is now 5-0 against the Saints.

Brodric Thomas and Zach Fischer each had a game-high 17 points and Fischer secured his 13th double-double of the season thanks to 10 rebounds to go with five blocks. Those five stuffs are a career high for Fischer and are tied for the fifth most in program history. In fact, those are five of Truman's eight and that mark is in a deadlock for fourth in the record book.

Jack Green finished with 14 points off the bench, 11 of which were in the first half, and Velky was the final Bulldog in double-figures with 13. Velky reached 1,000 points in just as many games as former Truman great, Seth Jackson, (78) who is third on the school's career scoring chart with 1,655 points.

The first half represented a true heavyweight bout as the teams continued to go tit for tat. Overall, the game saw five ties and 12 lead changes, but there were four and 11 of them, respectively, in the first half alone. In the first 20 minutes, Truman and Maryville each had two runs of at least 7-0 and combined to shoot 32-of-63 (50.8 percent) from the field including a blistering 16-for-27 from behind the arc (59.3 percent).

The Bulldogs' biggest lead of the game was six, 19-13, and came just over six minutes in after an 11-3 spurt that lasted 3:35. The Saints proceeded to score 10 points in a row and 12 of the next 14 to go back ahead by four, 25-21. Then came another 11-3 run for the visitors and they regained a four-point advantage, 32-28, with 7:30 to play in the first half. After back-to-back three-pointers by the home team to put it up by two, the game's first two ties (34-34 and 36-36) and a Nolan Berry free throw, a Thomas layup gave Truman the 38-37 lead with 3:03 remaining. The Bulldogs' next lead wouldn't come until they were rushing the court to hug Velky. At the half, the two teams were tied, 43-43.

The shooting for both Truman and Maryville wasn't nearly as efficient in the second half as they combined to go 22-of-61 (36.1 percent) from the floor, but managed a 10-for-24 (41.7 percent) clip from deep.

Just like the Bulldogs, the Saints' biggest lead of the game was six and they did it four times from the start of the second half to the 5:10 mark. At that point, it was 65-59, and Truman rattled off seven of the next eight points to tie it for a final time at 66-66. However, Maryville responded with a 7-2 run to go up five, 73-68, and that took the clock down to one minute and 24 seconds.

Fischer made one of two free throws to cut it to four, 73-69, before Berry turned the ball over on the other end and Green was fouled for the Bulldogs. Green converted on both freebies to slim the deficit to two and Fischer picked up his 10th rebound on the Saints' next possession. With 5.4 ticks left, Messer was fouled on a drive to the basket and cashed in on just one of his two free throws to pull Truman within one, 73-72. Back at the other end, Maryville's Casey Teson was fouled, but made only one of two at the charity stripe and it was a two-point game, 74-72, before a Foster timeout. Out of the breather, Velky took the inbounds pass from Messer and handled the rest.

Next up, Truman gets to exhale with an off day on Saturday before traveling to Drury in a week. Tip-off inside the Panthers' O'Reilly Family Event Center is set for 7:45 p.m. Back on Jan. 15 in Pershing Arena, Drury walked it off with triple at the buzzer to beat Truman in overtime, 98-96.

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