Box Score



ST. PAUL – Northwestern College had its nine-point halftime lead squashed by Bethany Lutheran College on Saturday night, ending the Eagles' undefeated 2-0 start to the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) schedule in a 67-64 final score. NWC led by as much as 16 points in the game, but a 51.7 three point percentage at the break shrunk down to 37.9 percent by the contest's end.

Everything was going right for Northwestern early on as three-pointer after three-pointer found the bottom of the net. The Eagles' first five makes were all from downtown before Lance Westberg (River Falls, Wis./River Falls) made a pair of two-point buckets before Steven Willey (Fort Calhoun, Neb./Fort Calhoun) put NWC back on the Three Train again as Northwestern led 22-17 midway through the first period.

Tom Gisler (Stewartville, Minn./Stewartville) made a three-pointer to give the Eagles a double-digit lead at 28-17 before the NWC buffer slipped just under 10 with the Eagles' Kyle Ooms (Hollandale, MN/Albert Lea High School) making a basket right under the hoop as the shot clock expired, followed by the game clock hitting zero two seconds later.

A nine-point, 40-31 lead, wasn't going to be a margin to relax in the second half and Northwestern knew it, especially after last year's UMAC Tournament championship game when the Eagles overcame an 18-3 buffer to win against the Vikings in Mankato. NWC did increase its pace over Bethany to 12 and 14 with made baskets to start the second half. Libby, who finished with a season-high 21 points, hit one of his five three-pointers to push the lead to 48-33 with 17:38 still to go. A pair of free throws from Libby extended the buffer to 16 three and a half minutes later before the go-go-gadget offense turned on for the Vikings.

Alex Weldon hit a three-pointer for Bethany to cut the Eagles' lead to seven before a Deon Wright put the Vikings within five with 9:03 to play. Gisler temporarily stopped the bleeding with a layup at 7:19, but Derek Peterson's free throws tied the score at 60-60 with 5:17 left to go. Libby had a go-ahead bucket for NWC before two more free throws and a basket from Peterson and Garrett Benson gave Bethany its first lead of the game with the clock reading 2:22. The two teams traded baskets before another Peterson strike at the charity stripe ended the game with the Vikings winning 67-64.

For as good as the Eagles shot in the first period, making over half of their total attempts, NWC went just seven of 24 in the second round, making just two of 12 attempts from behind the three-point line. Northwestern's 41.5 rate for the game was still better than Bethany's 37.7 percent (23-61).

After Libby's 21 points, Gisler and Westberg scored 11 and 10 points in the first half to finish with 16 and 13 for the game. Caleb Janson (Pierz, Minnesota/Pierz Healy) had nine rebounds in the second half to finish with 11 for the game.

Now 9-5 overall, Northwestern drops to 2-1 in UMAC competition, joining North Central University, the University of Minnesota Morris and Bethany Lutheran for a long-listed tie for second place in the conference standings as the College of St. Scholastica is the lone undefeated team at 3-0. The Eagles will take Sunday off before hitting the practice court again in Monday to prepare for another weekend of UMAC action, this time on the road as NWC plays at Minnesota Morris on Friday and Crown College in St. Bonifacius, Minn. on Saturday.