Box Score LAS VEGAS – Behind a 26-point, nine-assist performance from Josh Magette, the No. 18 UAH men's basketball team opened up play at the Great Western Shootout with an 85-75 victory over Central Washington on Thursday. The Chargers improve to 7-2 on the season while CWU drops to 6-3 with the loss.

Magette's performance matches the best scoring performance of the season for a UAH player as Zane Campbell also matched the feat with 26 against North Georgia earlier this year, and the 26-point showing was just four off of Magette's career high of 30 which he set against North Alabama a season ago.

Starting with a trey from Jaime Smith, the Blue and White scored the game's first nine points as it would lead through the entire first half thanks to a 60 percent shooting performance from the field, and the Chargers went 5-for-11 from downtown in the opening stanza to open up a 47-40 advantage at the halftime break.

The Chargers maintained their lead until Central Washington was able to tie it up on a pair of free throws from the Wildcats to make it 54-54 with 14:02 remaining, and they took the lead – a 56-54 advantage – for the first time just over a minute later with 12:45 left.

Kicking things up a notch after trailing for the first time on the night, the Chargers ripped off a 14-3 run that was keyed by a three-point trip to the free throw line from Magette and Smith's third shot from beyond the arc to push back on top by a 68-59 score at the 8:31 mark.

UAH continued to pour it on from that point as it limited the Wildcats to just eight points over the next seven minutes en route to extending the lead to a game-best 16 points at 83-57 with under two minutes remaining in the game.

Joining Magette in double figures in scoring was Campbell who notched his second double-double of the season by scoring 14 and cleaning up the glass 10 times, and Smith scored 15 while dishing out eight assists in the contest.

Smith is now on the precipice of joining the 1,000 point club at UAH as he needs just 27 to reach the plateau.

Srdjan Boskovic also finished the night in double figures as he tallied 11 points on the night.

The Chargers ended the contest shooting nearly 52 percent from the floor while holding Central Washington to shoot just under 44 percent, and the difference in the contest came at the free throw line as UAH converted on 21 of its 29 tries at the stripe while the Wildcats were just 11-for-25 for the game.

UAH will return to action in Las Vegas on Friday at 5 p.m. when it takes on Western Washington who was an 80-61 winner over previously unbeaten No. 10 Rollins on Thursday.