ST. PAUL – Northwestern College would love to have another shot at Friday night's final four and a half minutes in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, as the Eagles led the University of St. Thomas most of the game before ultimately falling to the eighth-ranked Tommies 70-60. NWC was in position to pull off the upset, leading most of the game and out-shooting the home team before St. Thomas' Tyler Nicolai's three-pointer with 2:21 to play sparked a 16-5 St. Thomas run.

Northwestern was the team that started out hot as the Eagles took a 10-2 lead in the first 3:30. The NWC margin increased to 14-6 within the next three minutes, but the Tommies started to claw back and tied the game at 14-14 by the 9:30 mark. UST took its first lead of the game on John Nance's jumper with 39 seconds to play in the first half before Gabe Jefferson (Lincoln, Neb./Lincoln Southeast) (Lincoln, Neb./Southeast) drained a three-pointer at the buzzer to send the Eagles into the locker room with a 32-30 advantage.

St. Thomas came back right away, as Nicolai, who averages 14 points per game, scored his first basket of the night on a three after 30 seconds had ticked off the clock. As had been the trend in the first half, Northwestern bounced back again, going up by five on three occasions before a Tommie run gave the tournament pod's top seed a 48-43 edge with 10:47 to go. From there, it was back and forth with each team temporarily taking one- and two-point leads until things started to get ugly for the Purple and Gold. Wade Chitwood (Grinnell, Iowa/Grinnell) (Grinnell, Iowa/Grinnell) hit a jumper to give NWC a 55-54 lead with 4:33 to play before turnovers turned into a 10-point St. Thomas lead. That margin proved to be the final difference, as the Tommies advanced to Saturday's second round with a 70-60 victory.

Northwestern finished 20-44 (.478) from the field and six of 16(.375) from downtown, besting St. Thomas' marks of 42 percent and 25 percent. UST made its mark in the paint though, out-scoring the Eagles 26-16 while earning 26 points off of 19 turnovers, a season high for NWC.

Chitwood was 6-10 to score a team-high 17 points for Northwestern while Brian Lecheler (Abbotsford, Wis./Abbotsford) (Abbotsford, Wis./Abbotsford) finished his career in an Eagles uniform shooting 4-5 from the field and 7-10 at the free throw line for 16 points to go with six assists. Jefferson battled with St. Thomas' big men under the hoop, fighting hard for seven rebounds while scoring eight points.

Nicolai led St. Thomas with 17 points, all of which came in the second half. Nance was a big reason the Tommies bench out-scored NWC 24-7, as the sophomore had 14 points. Tommy Hannon and Alex Healy also hit double-digits for UST (25-3).

Northwestern, who had its 14-game winning streak snapped with the loss, concludes its 2010-11 season with a 21-7 overall record. The Eagles, who were one of nine teams nationwide to make their first NCAA Tournament this year, have multiple things to build off of for 2011-12, including both a UMAC regular season and tournament championship and earning the conference's automatic qualifier into the big dance.