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ST. LOUIS - Kwamain Mitchell keyed a rally midway through the second half that helped Saint Louis pull away from Duquesne to a 69-59 Atlantic 10 Conference victory at Chaifetz Arena Saturday evening. The Billikens improve to 19-9 overall, 10-4 in league play, while the Dukes fell to 15-13 overall, 6-8 in the A-10.

Mitchell led four Billikens in double figures with 23 points to go with six rebounds. Willie Reed chipped in 10 points, four rebounds and four blocks. Cody Ellis contributed 10 points and Kyle Cassity finished with eight points, six caroms and six assists. SLU, which out-rebounded the Dukes 34-25, registered eight blocks in the game. Bill Clark led Duquesne with 17 points.

Ellis scored the first bucket of the game, corralling his own miss and converting it into a 2-0 SLU lead just 29 seconds in. Morakinyo Williams answered with a baseline jumper before the Bills scored eight unanswered points, including 3-pointers by Cassity and Ellis, to race out to a 10-2 lead.

Duquesne's Lucas Newton interrupted the rally by nailing a pair of free throws with 15:40 left in the opening half. But Christain Salecich sank a 3-pointer and Conklin added a layup at the 14:40 mark to extend Saint Louis' lead to 15-4.

The Dukes came charging back sparked by a Damian Saunders 3-pointer from the baseline. After a pair of dunks from Reed, Clark hit the first of his three first-half treys and Rodrigo Peggau banked in a shot to slice it to 19-14 with 10:26 to go. Duquesne got baskets from B.J. Monteiro and Williams to draw closer at 20-18 before Salecich's 3-pointer at the 5:59 mark ended a nearly seven minute Billiken drought from the field.

The teams traded baskets over the next minute and a half until Monteiro and Clark hit back-to-back treys to put the Dukes on top 29-28 with 3:00 left. Mitchell scored on a 3-pointer before Monteiro answered with a layup to keep things even at 31-31. Then Mitchell tossed in a pair of free throws to put SLU back up by two. But Monteiro made a layup with 47.8 seconds remaining to send the teams into the break tied at 33-33. The teams combined to make 11 3-pointers in the first half.

Neither team led by more than three points in the first 13 minutes of the second period. Ellis sank a 3-pointer just 13 seconds in the half to break the 33-33 deadlock, but the teams swapped buckets until Mitchell took over about midway through the half.

SLU trailed 45-42 with 12:03 left when a free throw from Reed ignited a 6-0 spurt that gave the Bills the lead for good. Mitchell scored five of SLU's six points during the run, which put SLU on top 48-45 after it held the Dukes scoreless for just over four minutes.

Saunders' layup with 7:55 to go trimmed it to 48-47 before the Billikens responded with seven unanswered points. A layup from Mitchell kicked off the rally and was followed by two Conklin charity tosses and a Cassity 3-pointer that extended SLU's lead to 55-47. The margin never dwindled to fewer than eight points the rest of the way as the Bills built a lead as large as 14 points before the conclusion of the game.