The Centre men's basketball team held off Berry for an 82-72 victory in a Southern Athletic Association game Sunday in Danville, Ky.

Collin Lopez (Louisville, Ky.) led the way offensively for the second straight game, scoring a game-high 21 points and connecting on five of 10 3-point attempts. Five Colonels reached double figures with Josh Karsner adding 19 points off the bench, Blake Scinta (Louisville, Ky.) scoring 13 and Tyler Wesley (Crestwood, Ky.) and Ryan Murray (Springboro, Ohio) each contributing 10 points. Lee McCloud led Berry with 19 points.

Berry led just once in the game, going up 5-2 after a McCloud 3-pointer in the opening moments. Though Scinta matched it with a 3-pointer on the following possession and the Colonels never trailed rest of the way, Berry hung with Centre until the closing minutes.

Centre briefly began to pull away when Lopez and Karsner sank 3-pointers to start a 12-2 run that put the Colonels up 37-26 at the five minute mark in the first half. However, the Vikings chipped away at the lead, trimming the margin to 46-40 by halftime.

Berry would stay with the Colonels through much of the second half, getting as close at 64-62 with nine minutes to play. From that point, Centre took charge of the game with another 12-2 run to go up 78-66. Scinta scored six of the Colonels' points during the surge while Berry managed just one field goal over a seven minute span. 

Centre shot 53 percent (28-of-53) from the field to Berry's 48 percent (30-of-63) and 46 percent (10-of-22) from outside to the Vikings' 36 percent (8-of-22). Berry held a 31-30 rebounding advantage, and each team turned the ball over 10 times.

With its 11th straight win, Centre improves to 17-3 overall and stays perfect in SAA competition at 10-0. Berry drops to 4-17 overall and 1-9 in the conference. The Colonels go back on the road next weekend when they travel to face Birmingham-Southern on Friday and Millsaps on Sunday.