UTPB men's basketball pulled away in the second half from Rogers State in its first Heartland Conference game of the season at home to win 87-79 Thursday evening in Odessa.

The Falcons never trailed in the contest and went ahead by double digits with six minutes remaining in the first half on a dunk by Codye Hatcher and a pair at the line by Chris Griffin to lead 30-19.

The UTPB lead slipped to a single point at 30-29, and a layup by Hatcher with 20 seconds remaining in the half gave the Falcons a 35-32 lead heading into halftime.

The Falcons started to pull away in the second half as Madison Turner hit one of his six 3-pointers at 16:03 to help UTPB to a 44-38 lead, an advantage that increased to 46-38 on a dunk by Griffin on a pass from Malcolm Hill-Bey.

UTPB twice pushed the lead back to 11 points on layups from Hill-Bey and Lamar Falley in the first 10 minutes of the half.

Rogers State hit a pair of threes and a fast-break layup as part of an 8-2 run to pull within four points, but Turner hit two threes on back-to-back possessions to push the lead back out to 10 points at 69-59.

Xavier Martin wrapped up the game at the line for the Falcons, hitting 10 straight free throws in the final 1:14 of the gameas UTPB ended the night with an eight-point victory.

Turner led all players on the night with 22 points, hitting 6-10 from deep and 8-13 from the field overall. Martin finished the game 13-14 from the free throw line to score 19 points. Griffin tallied 13 points with a pair of baskets behind the arc and Stephan Thopson scored 10 points on the night.

UTPB is back at home in two days, hosting UA Fort Smith Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m.