Box Score

ST. PAUL – The University of Northwestern did what it had to do to remain in a tie for second place in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) standings on Friday night as the Eagles defeated Northland College 64-39. The Eagles, who didn't have their best game of the season, out-rebounded the LumberJills by 15 and scored 19 points off of 16 Northland turnovers.

Scoring was slow in the early going, as neither team was able to score for nearly four minutes after Northwestern led 8-4. But then the Eagles turned up the heat, using layups in the paint from Mollie Sir (Cresco, Iowa/Crestwood) and Kim Campbell (Bloomington, Minn./Kennedy) to go on a 17-7 run to help UNW lead 25-14 at the halftime break.

Chanel Madson (Westbrook, Minn./Westbrook-Walnut Grove), who scored the Eagles' first five points of the game in her quest for 1,000 career points, eclipsed the milestone mark 11 seconds into the second period with a three-pointer off of Sir's assist. What was an 11-point advantage at the halfway mark turned into a 44-23, 21-point edge with 11:48 still to play in the game as Emily Van Lith (Minot, N.D./Our Redeemers) hit a pair of free throws. Despite a few late-game three-point makes for Northland, Northwestern's lead continued to solidify towards a win as the buffer never went under 22 points the rest of the way out in the 25-point victory.

Northwestern turned a 32 percent first half shooting performance into a 39 percent mark for the game after making 14 of 30 attempts in the second round. Only seven of the Eagles' 29 three-point attempts fell through the bottom of the net. At the same time, Northland made just 26.8 percent of its shots while going a dismal 6-24 from downtown.

UNW head coach Aaron Kahl was pleased with a 49-34 advantage in rebounding in his team's favor. 13 of Northwestern's 24 makes on the night were assisted.

Sir and Madson's 11 and 10 points were the only double-digit scores for the 22 combined players on both teams. Courtney Cunard (Missouri Valley, Iowa/Missouri Valley) had 10 boards on the night for the Eagles, while Jacki Smith (Shoreview, Minn./Concordia Academy) finished with eight points and eight rebounds. Madson is the 15th player to join Northwestern's 1,000 Point Club, a group that Sir is already a member of.

Now 18-6 overall, Northwestern remains in the hunt for a home playoff game next week as the Eagles are one of three teams at 10-3 in UMAC play. That tie in the standings is guaranteed to be be broken up a bit on Saturday as the Eagles host St. Scholastica, one of the other second place teams, tomorrow at 3 p.m. in the Ericksen Center. Minnesota Morris has already clinched the UMAC Tournament's No. 1 seed with the No. 2 spot up for grabs in the four-team race for an NCAA Tournament berth.