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ST. PAUL -- Despite making less baskets and finishing with a significantly lower shooting percentage than its opponent, Northwestern College (Minn.) did the little things to grind out a 78-69 victory over the University of Wisconsin-River Falls on Saturday night. The game, which pitted a pair of NCAA Division III Tournament teams from the 2011-2012 season, saw a differential of 24 points as the Eagles overcame a 12-point deficit in the first half before winning by 12 in the end.

Northwestern found itself in a hole early as River Falls sprung from a 5-5 tie game to a 19-8 lead over the course of four minutes. The Falcons hit two three-pointers in that stretch while dashing through the lane for a pair of layups as well before the Eagles temporarily stopped the bleeding with a trey from Michael Carney (Ames, Iowa/Des Moines Christian). NWC was still trailing by 12 at 23-11 before scoring five straight points, thanks in part to an and-one play by Tom Gisler (Stewartville, Minn./Stewartville). Consecutive jumpers from Matt Watnemo (Moorhead, Minnesota/Moorhead High School) and Caleb Janson (Pierz, Minnesota/Pierz Healy) cut the River Falls margin to five before the Falcons' Ollie White scored on two straight layups under the hoop to bump the advantage back to 10 with eight minutes left in the first half.

Watnemo drained a three-pointer to cut the Falcons' lead to seven before Wade Chitwood (Grinnell, Iowa/Grinnell) followed with a deep ball of his own, bringing the Eagles within four points at 34-29 with 3:49 to play. Two minutes later, Steven Willey (Fort Calhoun, Neb./Fort Calhoun) hit a jumper to make it a one-basket game before Kory Kiekhoefer (Woodbury, Minn./New Life Academy) tied the score at 39-39 with 39 ticks left in the first half. A late foul call gave White two free throws, and the River Falls senior made both attempts from the charity stripe to give the visitors on the scoreboard a two-point lead at halftime.

White's jumper 39 seconds into the second period boosted the UW-River Falls buffer back to four, but the lead wouldn't get much bigger before Northwestern's hard work started to pay off. After the Falcons' Ben Gresmer hit a jump shot to put his team up 47-42, Ellis Libby (Bloomington, Minn./Jefferson) and Shephard nailed back-to-back threes to give the Eagles the lead for the first time. Northwestern never looked back, but the Eagles didn't explode right away as NWC still struggled to find the bottom of the net, shooting 33 percent with 10:45 remaining in the game -- even with a successful three-point attempts from Chitwood. The Falcons weren't going to let things get out of hand too quickly, holding Northwestern to leads of two to seven points as the clocked slipped under six minutes to go. In the span of One minute and seven seconds though, Northwestern turned a 60-58 margin into a 66-58 lead as Gisler made two straight shots from downtown. The Eagles' lead was up to 12 on Watnemo's two free throws at the 2:58 mark, with more success at the charity stripe preserving the 12-point advantage for nearly two more minutes.

Much like Northwestern's Friday contest against Saint Mary's, River Falls scored five straight points in the final 25 seconds before Chitwood made good on two free throws to end the game with a 78-69 Eagles victory.

NWC finished with a 37 percent shooting performance, making just 26 of 70 shots from the field, including an 11-of-30 rate from behind the three-point line, while River Falls finished 29 of 58 for an even 50 percent. The Eagles, who were outrebounded 40-38 by a bigger Falcons team, committed just seven turnovers though while dishing out 15 assists. Meanwhile, the Northwestern defense forced River Falls into 14 turnovers while allowing a mere four assists.

Gisler was the Eagles' best shooter on the night, finishing the game with 19 points on 6-14 shooting to go with 10 rebounds to complete the senior's first double-double of the season. Chitwood added 14 points, while Carney finished with 10, marking the second consecutive game that the young freshman hit double figures. As Northwestern head coach Tim Grosz went deep in his bench again, much like he did on Friday, the five non-starters each made a significant impact on the game. Willey's 2-4 shooting were hardly evidence of how the point guard controlled the game in his 18 minutes of play, while Janson and Daniel Petkau (Rib Lake, Wis./Rib lake) combined for 13 rebounds in 22 minutes. After 21 minutes in two games, Janson has 15 rebounds to his name.

UW-River Falls (1-1) was led by White's 21 points as the 6-7 forward had his way under the basket on offense most of the night. Arik Smith followed with 16 points on 7-14 shooting.

Northwestern, now 2-0 to start the 2012-2013 campaign, will take its brief two-game winning streak on the road next week as the Eagles are scheduled to face Macalester College down Snelling Avenue in St. Paul on Tuesday night. NWC will tip off against the Scots at 7:30 p.m. before taking a brief Thanksgiving break and returning to the Ericksen Center for a Saturday evening battle against Hamline University.