San Antonio – There is a reason why Kevin Kotzur recently took over the top spot on the St. Mary’s career shooting percentage charts.

And he showed it Thursday night.

Dominating inside, the 6-foot-8 sophomore forward from La Vernia, Texas scored 23 points and hauled in 13 rebounds to lead the Rattlers to a 79-56 victory over St. Edward’s on Thursday.

The victory at Bill Greehey Arena opened up Heartland Conference play – and also notched another “W” in the wins column for the Rattlers in the latest installment of “Battle of the Saints.”

Kotzur, who entered the week with a 66.7 career shooting percentage, leads the conference in points (18.8) and rebounds (7.9).

The explosive victory followed last week’s loss to Angelo State, in which the Rattlers were held to a season-low 57 points.

On this night, however, St. Mary’s cruised from the start. A Jeremy Fonteneaux (Jr., DeSoto, Texas) dunk put the Rattlers up 17-8 with 12 minutes left in the opening half, helping spring St. Mary’s to an eventual 35-26 halftime lead.

The advantage swelled from there, with Kotzur putting down a thunderous dunk nearly a minute into the second half, and later netting a putback off his own miss to put the Rattlers up 50-33 with 12 minutes left.

St. Mary’s led by as many as 23 points in the game.

WATCH THE SECOND HALF BELOW:

Fonteneaux gave the game a fitting end, taking a steal for a breakaway, one-handed dunk with .2 seconds left.

Josh Orta (So., San Antonio) scored 11 points to go along with seven assists, while Lamb Autrey (Jr., Cibolo, Texas) and Fonteneaux also scored 11 apiece.

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