Blue Mountain, Miss. – The defending NAIA National Champion Dalton State basketball team continued to slide Monday with an 88-75 loss to Blue Mountain College.

The Roadrunners (12-6 overall, 4-4 SSAC) have now lost four of their last five SSAC games.  The Toppers improved to 4-13 overall and 2-6 SSAC.

Dalton State scored the first basket of the game, but Blue Mountain tied the game at two and never looked back. The Toppers hit 6 of 8 from beyond the arch to gain a 12-point lead at 25-13 and then a 13-point advantage at 37-24. The hosts maintained an 8-point margin at intermission, 37-29.

The Toppers went up by 19 (61-42) before the Roadrunners came back to pull to within 8 at 70-62. That was as close as it got.

"Plain and simple, we need to be smarter on both ends of the floor," said Coach Tony Ingle. "We competed hard all night, but we never could consistently come up with timely stops on the defensive end and we could not get in enough of a flow offensively to take the lead."

Rudy Winters led Dalton State scorers with a game-high 22 points including 7 of 11 field goals, 2-2 from beyond the arch, and 6-8 free throws. Jalen Robinson was in foul trouble early. He only played 23:22, but managed 13 points and a game-high 8 rebounds. Jordan Bowling added a dozen points and Deshawn Ruffin scored 10.  Marcel Hawkins scored six.

Rebounding was even with 38 boards each. The Roadrunners only hit 21-58 from the floor (36.21%) to 30-57 (52.63) for the Toppers.  BMC cooled off from beyond the arch, but still managed 13-28 (46.43%). DS only hit six of 20 three's (30%). Dalton State hit 27-37 foul shots (72.97%) and Blue Mountain hit 9-15 from the charity stripe (78.95%).

DeAundre Smith led the scoring for the Toppers with 19 points including 5-7 from three and 4-4 from the foul line. 

The Roadrunners will play Middle Georgia State in Cochran on Saturday at 4:00 p.m. William Carey defeated the Middle Georgia Knights on Monday, 88-74.

NAIA Scoreboard:

Blue Mountain (Miss.) 88, Dalton State 75
William Carey (Miss.) 88, Middle Georgia State 74
Faulkner (Ala.) 81, Mobile (Ala.) 71
Bethel (Tenn.) 99, Coastal Georgia 96
Auburn-Montgomery (Ala.) 104, Loyola (La.) 80
Talladega (Ala.) 81, Philander Smith ( Ark.) 71
Xavier (La.) 83, Tougaloo (Miss.) 75