There was no crawling back in it this time.

The Bearkats jumped on Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the final five minutes of the first half and delivered the knockout punch in the second to roll to a 90-74 victory Saturday night at Johnson Coliseum.

Junior forward Gilberto Clavell battled through a stomach bug and ripped the Islanders for 30 points and eight rebounds as Sam Houston State (18-5) remained in control of the Southland Conference race by improving to 10-0 in league play.

Senior Corey Allmond added 15 points and junior Josten Crow went 4 for 6 from 3-point land to chip in 14. Sophomore Drae Murray and senior Ashton Mitchell each scored in double figures, finishing with 12 and 10 points, respectively.

Sam Houston shot 59 percent from the field, won the rebounding battle 32-29 and hit 10 of 26 from long range.

"It was a good game," Bearkats head coach Bob Marlin said. "I liked the way that we played, and we need to continue to build on that and carry it into the next game. We need to keep doing what we have been doing and it is business as usual."

The Kats built a 26-point lead in the second half, but some careless turnovers helped A&M-Corpus Christi (7-3 in SLC, 13-11 overall) get to within 13 at 70-57 at the 10:51 mark.

The past few games, Sam Houston has squandered double-digit leads and has had to battle until the end. But that didn't happen Saturday.

After Islanders forward Marcus Hammonds trimmed the Kats' lead to 13 with a layup to cap a 11-2 run, Murray answered with a 3.

Corpus senior forward Kevin Palmer, who scored 19 points, knocked down a free throw, but again Murray connected from long range to push the lead to 76-58.

Those two shots from Murray ended any hopes of an Islander rally.

"It was just handling adversity," Murray said. "We missed some assignments on defense or they got easy baskets or we had some turnovers that led to easy baskets. Coach Marlin called a timeout, got us in the huddle and we were able to step up, get focused and do what we had to do.

"We pushed the lead back up to 20 at one time and it just went back and forth from then on."

The game was close for the majority of the first half even though A&M-Corpus Christi never led.

With the score 27-25, the Bearkats finally went on a run to open things up. Clavell got it going with a floater in the lane and Allmond followed with a short jumper. Crow hit a 3 and Clavell scored an old-fashioned three-point play to push the lead to 12.

Sam Houston started to pull away after that. Preston Brown hit a trey and Clavell scored two quick baskets. Lance Pevehouse connected on a pair of free throws to make it 46-27.

The Islanders finally managed to get a basket by Jawan Nelson, but Allmond and Clavell hooked up for one of the best dunks in Johnson Coliseum history.

Allmond got a steal and raced down the court. He looked back then laid the ball off the backboard as Clavell slammed it home to send the crowd into a frenzy.

A&M-Corpus Christi only managed to score six points in the final seven minutes of the half, and Murray scored four unanswered to send the Kats into the break up 52-31.

"It was very important to win this game because if we would have lost we would have only been one game ahead (of the Islanders) with six games left," Clavell said. "We have a tough game Saturday at UTSA and we have to play at Lamar on Wednesday."

The Bearkats were without sophomore forward Antuan Bootle on Saturday. He fractured a bone in his foot in Sam Houston's 75-69 victory at Nicholls this past Wednesday.

SHSU head coach Bob Marlin said he wasn't sure how long Bootle will be out, but they do expect the team's leader in rebounding in SLC action to play again this season.

With Bootle unable to go Saturday, Gilberto Clavell and Preston Brown answered the call on the glass. Both players finished with eight boards.