YOUNG HARRIS, Ga. – Senior Nigel Grant scored 16 of his game-high 22 points in the second half to lead the 25^th-ranked UNC Pembroke men's basketball team back from a 9-point halftime deficit as the Braves won their Peach Belt Conference opener for the second-straight year with an 80-71 victory at Young Harris on Saturday.
 
The victory helped the Braves (5-1, 1-0 PBC) improve to 4-6 in conference openers under head coach Ben Miller, while also marking the first time the road team has captured a victory in the six-year-old series. It was the fifth-straight loss for the Mountain Lions (1-5, 0-1) whose lone victory on the campaign came in the season opener at Barton.
 
Grant shot 8-for-10 from the field, including a 5-for-6 success rate in the second half, and combined with fellow senior Brandon Watts to score more than half of UNCP's points on the day. Watts made good on six of his nine field goal attempts in the opening stanza and finished his day with a season-best 19 points. Sophomore Akia Pruitt added 12 points, eight rebounds and a trio of blocks as well.
 
Ben Waterhouse scored 18 of his team-high 20 points for Young Harris in the opening half, while Nicksen Blanc added 18 of his own.
 
The Braves shot better than 62 percent from the field in the latter stanza, but ultimately used a late run to provide the winning margin. Down 43-34 at the break, UNCP connected on six of its first seven shots in the second half to knot the game up at 50 apiece with 14:58 to play, and then traded blows with the Mountain Lions for much of the game's next seven minutes. David Strother's 3-pointer with 8:05 remaining sparked the Black & Gold on a momentum-changing run, however, as the Braves rattled off 15 of the next 16 points to take an 11-point lead, 74-63, after Pruitt's slam with two minutes left to play.
 
UNCP shot 50 percent from the field in the opening half, but committed 13 turnovers that fueled a handful of scoring spurts by the hosts that threatened to take the game out of reach. A dunk by Watts at the 6:42 mark gave the Braves their last lead of the stanza, 24-23, but the transition basket sparked a 14-5 run by Young Harris that gave it a 37-29 lead just more than four minutes later.
 
The Braves scored five-straight points to pull to within three with two minutes left before the intermission, but the Mountain Lions closed the period on a 6-0 run to take a nine-point advantage into the locker rooms.
 
UNCP will take an 11-day hiatus from competition to focus on final exams before resuming its regular season schedule on December 14 at Barton (4-4). Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Wilson Gymnasium.