Western played last night in the heart of the Major League Baseball Grapefruit spring training league.

They benefited from a great relief effort.

For the second game in a row, Western’s starting backcourt was slowed down, but the bench picked up the slack, scoring 28 points led by sophomore guard A.J. Slaughter’s 12 points.

The Toppers (23-6, 15-2 Sun Belt Conference East) beat Florida International (9-18, 6-11 Sun Belt East) 69-54 in front of virtually an empty house at Pharmed Arena in Miami, giving Western its sixth consecutive road win this season.

“Our offense wasn’t as sharp as we would like it to be,” coach Darrin Horn said in his post game radio show. “We did not take care of the ball well, but were still able to get 69 points on the board and shoot a pretty good percentage.”

The Toppers were able to shoot 51 percent from the field, but had to overcome foul trouble with freshman forward D.J. Magley, senior guard Tyrone Brazelton fouling out and 22 team turnovers with five of the turnovers committed by Brazelton.

“(Brazelton) just got on a run that was so good,” Horn said. “It’s going to be hard to stay at that level. We don’t need it to be at that level every night, but we just need it to be a little bit better in terms of taking care of the ball than it was tonight.”

Brazelton was again slowed down for the second game in a row. He finished with just eight points and one assist. He scored six against Louisiana-Monroe on Saturday.

Senior guard Courtney Lee was held to just six points Wednesday night. It was just the second time all season that he was held to fewer than 10 points in a game.

Magley played just 11 minutes but produced 10 points. It was the first time this season that Magley had scored double-digit points in consecutive games. He also scored 10 points in Western’s win over Louisiana-Monroe.

Western struggled to get ahead of the Golden Panthers in the first half, but got a boost from an 8-0 run, stretching their lead to 27-14.

Western survived what turned out to be a physical half. Slaughter took a hard screen that left him slow to get up, and Brazelton was treated for what looked to be a bloody nose.

The Toppers also got a rebounding boost as well outdoing the Golden Panthers 36-28 on the boards.

“We did the job on the glass,” Horn said. “And again, rebounding and defense is what is going to give us a chance to win three games here in a week (at the conference tournament) and so that is what was important about tonight’s game.”

Western finishes it’s regular-season slate at 6 p.m. Saturday at Florida Atlantic before going to the Sun Belt Conference tournament on March 9 through March 11 in Mobile, Ala.

Reach Andrew Robinson at sports@chherald.com.