KANSAS CITY, Mo.- The CSUB Roadrunners built a 27-point first half lead, dealt with a pair of Missouri-Kansas City runs in the second half and made plays when it counted to win their WAC opener 83-72 Saturday night at Municipal Auditorium.

It marks the first time since joining the WAC that CSUB (11-5, 1-0 WAC) has started 1-0 in conference play.

“I can't say enough about our guys coming out and establishing themselves on the road,” said head coach Rod Barnes. “We got the big lead and I thought we got careful with some things and Kansas City made some plays and you can expect that on someone's home court, but I thought our guys finished, we put ourselves in a position to win and I thought our guys closed it out the right way.”

Aly Ahmed led the 'Runners with a season-high 24 points on 9-of-15 from the field and 6-of-11 from the free-throw line. Ahmed was joined by Damiyne Durham who scored 15-first-half points while shooting 5-of-8 from three-point range in the half. He added one more three-pointer in the second half while scoring a season-high 18 points on 6-of-10 from three-point range.

“I thought tonight Damiyne really stepped it up, I thought in the first half our guys really spread the ball around well, we had 21 assists in the game and that let's you know we're playing together,” Barnes said. “It's a big win for us but we have another game, we have to get on the road to Chicago and just try to keep going…whenever you can get them on the road I told our teams it's like getting two wins.”

Each team traded 5-0 runs early in the first half before the Roadrunners went on a 14-0 run from the 17:29 mark to the 13:09 mark which included a pair of Durham three-pointers. A few minutes later the Roadrunners defense would click, holding UMKC without a field goal for nearly six minutes while the offense managed to build a 26-point lead at one point. After leading by as many as 27 in the half the 'Roos scored twice late in the period as the Roadrunners led by 22 at the half 47-25. It was the sixth time this season CSUB has held an opponent to less-than 30 points at halftime.

As has been the case with nearly every CSUB-UMKC matchup, there would be a little drama in the second half. After CSUB stretched their lead back to 27 points with just over 15 minutes remaining, the Kangaroos would go on a 12-3 run over the next four minutes to cut the lead to 13 points with 9:43 remaining, following a CSUB layup by Ahmed, the 'Roos hit one of five second-half three-pointers to cut the lead to 54-66 with 7:23 to play.

After extending the lead to 16 once again, UMKC made one final push, going on a 10-2 run to pull within nine points with just over two minutes to play. Brent Wrapp then made a spectacular play with 1:45 remaining; Wrapp was knocked to the floor near half court and with time winding down on the shot clock he threw the ball towards the rim while on the floor, hitting the rim which set up a CSUB offensive rebound and forcing the Kangaroos to foul Dedrick Basile who went on to hit both free throws, thus icing the game for the 'Runners. Basile had 15 points on 5-of-10 from the field. Wrapp finished the game with seven assists for the Roadrunners who had 21 assists to just 10 turnovers.

Bakersfield's defense was again a catalyst forcing 14 Kangaroos turnovers which led to 19 points, they also outrebounded UMKC 31-26 and outscored the 'Roos 40-28 in the paint. UMKC (8-9, 1-1 WAC) was led by Martez Harrison who scored 19 points and was 10-of-10 from the free-throw line. UMKC shot 52% in the second half after being held to just 9-of-25 in the first half. CSUB was 29-of-56 from the field, good for 52% and 6-of-14 from three-point range.

The 'Runners will travel to Chicago State for a Monday night match up with the Cougars (4-13, 0-1 WAC), they fell 66-50 on Saturday to Seattle.

Monday's game can be heard live on Newstalk 1180 and 96.1 FM KERN beginning at 5 P.M. (PT).